Get it a bit better in term of precision and we have a killer lab automation tool. Labs around the world would be willing to pay 1M for a robot that can handle manual lab works and it is not like they are very difficult. Lots of labwork is based on established protocols with well defined steps. A robot that can grab things and go to town on those tubes without any programming needed is a blockbuster product to me.
Agreed, my girlfriend has a biochemistry degree and works in such a lab. It involves some physical work like collecting, preparing and inputting samples, doing basic maintenance of the machines, some analysis and then some administrative/secretarial work in feeding the results into a system or by phonecall to the doctor.
All of which can indeed be automated in my view.
I would say it really depends on where you are though. In the US it probably makes sense quite quickly. But she lives in a small EU country where salaries aren't high, and this is very much a junior position with a lot of students looking for such a job. Her position costs about 25k a year.
The NPV of a $1m investment with a 25k cashflow is negative at normal discount rates. Once you get to replace a $120k salary with a $1m robot, it does make sense.
Further I do still expect there to be some jobs in overseeing the robot (e.g. your average factory manager). That makes sense for large centralised production locations, because you can have 1 human job overseeing many robots. It doesn't necessarily make sense with many small decentralised production locations. And that's the nature of most labs, I believe due to the time sensitivity of a lot of lab work they need to be everywhere and close to customers. But maybe that will change.
$7000 for the wheels/navigation module
$3500 x2 for the control arms
$6000 x2 for the controlled arms
I don't think you need a $7000 navigation module and the arms are also probably overkill. To which extent do we need closed-loop Dynamixel servos when the policy diffusion algo already relies on computer vision driven closed-loop control ?
Remember though that AI is a winner takes all space. It will probably be won by a company with lots of cash behind it (like this one which has support from many companies, including OpenAI).
significantly lower than what a human already doing the job would cost, until the VC money runs out. And then a whole bunch more than what a human would cost, after they've got you locked in and you've let your staff go.
Good point, although it probably won't be 4 for most labs, perhaps 2. My gf does 1 nightshift a week and she is alone in the lab for the 3-4 emergency samples that come in (versus a team of people processing hundreds during the day), there simply isn't much demand at night. Most blood sampling has a human pipeline of people going to their doctor or hospital with an issue, getting blood taken, which is sent to a lab, the majority of that during the day.
Again for large scale centralised labs that get sent samples throughout the 24 hour period from all across the world, where timing isn't an big issue, this could work. But most labs are small, close to the customer, time-sensitive, and work with couriers to bring samples because samples need to be transported and stored in specific ways not to go bad.
She works quite long shifts btw (10-12h), but that's more a function of her country/company culture rather than the norm. Probably 6-8 is more common indeed.
How much of the timing on samples is down to lab availability, though? E.g. my gp wants samples in by 1pm because otherwise they'll got to the lab the following day. If the lab would still process things that came in at the end of the day, I could very much see larger doctors offices sending off samples more than once a day, with the last one coming in after the end of their clinics.
I could see demand spreading out more - though I agree it might be closer to 2 than 4 - if the availability of human labor wasn't an issue.
Assuming a lunch break is not included as part of 8 hours, do you really think most exmployees are productive for a full 8 hours?
Most office workers spend an exorbitant amount of time twiddling their thumbs, reading emails, going to the restroom. On average, I'd say knowledge workers are typically productive for about 2 to 3 hours per day. I'd estimate physical laborers range up to 4 or 5 hours.
Assuming 8 hours of full productivity is a strange number to focus on
It really depends. For Finland lunch is unpaid unless you are forced to eat at premises. But then you usually have 2 refreshment breaks (10-15min) which are paid...
Don't expect much. Even screwing a nut on a bolt is a huge problem for generic robot. Which means you will need a 'robot friendly' lab. Were all things can be done by a primitive robotic hand. Other options are making more capable hands, and completely robotic specialized labs. The first is most interesting and the way to go. When it happens it will open a lot of possibilities. Like "self-repairing" vehicles and planet stations. Just with 'technician' robot onboard.
This lab automation product already exists and the couple of startups in this space face the same headwinds as everyone else trying to sell hardware when the stuff people are essentially really paying for is software.
Also nobody’s academic lab is buying $1m startup lab equipment. A whole core for 30 research groups is buying something, but it will be a piece of equipment that directly leads to publishing, ie, something with history. That is why you don’t have the exact thing you are talking about, which exists, in labs.
Also worth mentioning that a lot of stuff in chemistry labs is toxic and even potentially deadly to humans, it would be a big win if these could be handled by robots instead.
