Rodney Brooks is a co-founder of iRobots and has started other robot companies. Lex Friedman interviewed Rodney about how to make popular robots. iRobot Roomba came out in 2002 and has been the only high volume robot if hobbyist and enterprise drones are excluded.
Rodney thinks the Baxter Robot could have had more success if they had kept to a $3000-5000 price target.
iRobot was founded in 1990 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology roboticists with the vision of making practical robots a reality, iRobot has sold more than 30 million robots worldwide. They introduced the first practical home robot with Roomba, automating home vacuuming.
They developed some of the world’s most important robots. Its robots have revealed mysteries of the Great Pyramid of Giza, found harmful subsea oil in the Gulf of Mexico, and saved thousands of lives in areas of conflict and crisis around the globe. iRobot inspired the first Micro Rovers used by NASA, changing space travel forever, deployed the first ground robots used by U.S. Forces in conflict, brought the first self-navigating FDA-approved remote presence robots to hospitals.
iRobot revenue for the second quarter of 2021 was $365.6 million, an increase of 31% from $279.9 million in the second quarter of 2020. The growth primarily reflected healthy demand from retailers in North America and from the company’s retail and distribution partners in EMEA. Revenue for the first half of 2021 was $668.9 million versus $472.4 million in the first half of 2020.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
To be honest, such reality can be pretty frightening. Terminator’s plot can become real, I think
To be honest, such reality can be pretty frightening. Terminator’s plot can become real
rule 34
Space robots.
If Baxter is replacing someone making $30k/yr, venture capital would expect a high percent of that savings. That is why a high level of automation will take a lot longer than people expect, a high barrier to entry. It's so much easier to just rent a poorly educated person for peanuts and put up with their nonsense.
Lots of things are possible, a buggy bot or a hacked bot could stab you to death. Your wife's boyfriend could just as easily stab you to death while you're sleeping.
Which is more likely?
Many such cases.
Any domestic robot dexterous enough to grab you a beer from the fridge can grab a knife from the drawer and stab you to death while you sleep.
But can you make love to a Roomba?