The problem with the F-35 program is that designing fighter planes to combine with four other fighter planes to form one giant flying Samurai robot always seems like a good idea. But the engineering compromises required to allow the combination degrades the individual fighters' performance so much that they rarely manage to complete any mission as separate aircraft, so they end up forced to combine. I've seen this happen countless times. Also, they invariably require teenagers to pilot them.
Cont: Musk, SpaceX and future of Tesla II
- Thread starter a_unique_person
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Apparently in an investors' call he said Tesla profits where down 71%. I presume the stock price took a nosedive......? 
Fast Eddie B
Philosopher
Apparently in an investors' call he said Tesla profits where down 71%. I presume the stock price took a nosedive......?
I think investors are betting on autonomous driving and robots to be Tesla's "next big thing". Either one could prove to be a home run for the company, but with the competition that exists in these area, color me skeptical.
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
Indeed. At the aerospace museum where I volunteer, we have a well-preserved Aardvark.
General Dynamics F-111E Aardvark | Hill Aerospace Museum
Anteaters in Flight Does the long nose of this aircraft remind you of an ant eater? Early F-111 crews thought it did, so they nicknamed it the “Aardvark.” H ...
www.aerospaceutah.org
While ours came from the RAF (one A), I usually make a point of how well the RAAF (two As) loved it.
Bingo. There is always a tremendous incentive to consolidate as much as possible. But combat aircraft by definition have to live on the bleeding edge of performance and constantly operate at the edge of the envelope. So you end up with either a fighter that sucks at all the envisioned roles, or you have a variant for the Air Force, a variant for the Navy, and variant for the Marines. That kills a lot of the intended consolidation benefit.
Calm down there, Johnny Sokko.
How big is the market for humanoid robots in any case ?
Industrial robots are a pretty mature market that Tesla seems disinterested in breaking into so are we talking about service robots. If so Boston Dynamics have been doing things for years that Musk can only dream about and Japan seems to be leading the way.
In the same way that Trump seems stuck in the early 80s, Musk's imagination seems to be stuck in the 90s, a pickup that looks like a toddler drew it, domestic robots and self driving cars when the world ha moved on considerably in the last 30 years.
Andy_Ross
Penultimate Amazing
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Elon says
"Robots will surpass good human surgeons within a few years and the best human surgeons within ~5 years.
@Neuralink had to use a robot for the brain-computer electrode insertion, as it was impossible for a human to achieve the required speed and precision."
"Robots will surpass good human surgeons within a few years and the best human surgeons within ~5 years.
@Neuralink had to use a robot for the brain-computer electrode insertion, as it was impossible for a human to achieve the required speed and precision."
And will these robots develop new surgical procedures?
angrysoba
Philosophile
RAF never had F-111s from what I know. There were F-111s based in the UK though. I believe they famously attempted to take out Colonel Gaddafi in the 80s.Indeed. At the aerospace museum where I volunteer, we have a well-preserved Aardvark.
General Dynamics F-111E Aardvark | Hill Aerospace Museum
Anteaters in Flight Does the long nose of this aircraft remind you of an ant eater? Early F-111 crews thought it did, so they nicknamed it the “Aardvark.” H ...
While ours came from the RAF (one A), I usually make a point of how well the RAAF (two As) loved it.
Bingo. There is always a tremendous incentive to consolidate as much as possible. But combat aircraft by definition have to live on the bleeding edge of performance and constantly operate at the edge of the envelope. So you end up with either a fighter that sucks at all the envisioned roles, or you have a variant for the Air Force, a variant for the Navy, and variant for the Marines. That kills a lot of the intended consolidation benefit.
Calm down there, Johnny Sokko.
Andy_Ross
Penultimate Amazing
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The RAF nearly had them.
The RAF variant was known officially as the F-111K
It's a long and complicated tale.
A good concise telling here.
The RAF variant was known officially as the F-111K
It's a long and complicated tale.
A good concise telling here.
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
* Checks notes *
Correct, ours is from a USAF squadron formerly stationed at an RAF Upper Heyford.
angrysoba
Philosophile
It was probably part of that mission then, though as electronic warfare support. The actual bombers flew out from Lakenheath.
There was a lot of protest and backlash to the bombing in the UK at the time.
arthwollipot
Observer of Phenomena, Pronouns: he/him
These robots? No, that's not their function.
Is Tesla producing this kind of robot or have the specialist medical robotics companies already moved into this area?
So which surgeons will? New procedures traditionally come from experienced surgeons seeing a problem and trying to solve it.
Such robots are being used more and more but all are still controlled by a surgeon. The issue is that the human body is very, very messy, and each body is unique. Surgeons will open someone up and find say an artery to the gallbladder that on the anatomy model is on the topside, is underneath, when they start to repair an artery they have to change their plans as something comes up unexpectedly. As much as human surgeons can screw-up if I was having a complex operation I'd still want an experienced human surgeon that on the spot can adjust and deal with complications.
jeremyp
Philosopher
The problem with robots, or at least the traditional ones that look like humans, that hasn't occurred to Galaxy Brain, is that, in most cases, the humanoid form is not optimal for the task. For a start, a bipedal robot needs to spend some non trivial amount of computing power just to stay standing up. And why limit the robot to two arms?
My mother had an abdominal operation that was performed by a robot (operated by a human) a couple of years ago. The robot was a spidery looking thing with lots of arms terminating in prongs and knives and cameras and it was firmly bolted down because not moving at all is an excellent trait for a machine that is supposed to be slicing and dicing humans in a controlled way.
My mother had an abdominal operation that was performed by a robot (operated by a human) a couple of years ago. The robot was a spidery looking thing with lots of arms terminating in prongs and knives and cameras and it was firmly bolted down because not moving at all is an excellent trait for a machine that is supposed to be slicing and dicing humans in a controlled way.
Yes, it's like Musk is cosplaying a tech genius from the books/graphic novels of his youth rather than actually paying attention to current and future trends and developments.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Boston Dynamics has entered the chat.