One simple example: getting in and out of a car. Another thing to consider is that a legged robot can tilt itself for balance while carrying heavy objects. To carry a similar weight with a wheeled robot you'll need a much wider wheel base.
And then of course, if you want to build robots that can be useful inside a house, then they need to be able to cope with stairs. There's also construction... At some point, you don't have elevators... Or just circulating between buildings out on the street where the pavement isn't great.
Of course that needs very smart systems that can co-ordinate but that's my point, there's an opportunity cost for everything, and I think that's better spent on AI and a multitude of other systems rather than a schoolboy sci-fi fantasy of bipedal robots
this feels like a flawed example to me. ~100 years on and all cars are starting to look the same.[1] Personal computers, after like 30 years, have mostly converged around something that's essentially a 3x5 touchscreen with cameras on both sides. Sure, there are laptops and PC's, work and semi trucks, but that's 3 form factors? meh. Manufacturing at scale is much more efficient, and form follows function, can't really escape either.
[1]https://windingroad.com/articles/features/why-do-all-new-car...
1. Stairs. Roomba's can't vacuum stairs, so you still need to do those yourself.
2. Stairs, Roomba's can't traverse stairs, so you need one for each floor.
3. Doors. If you want the Roomba to vacuum the whole house, you have to have all the doors open for it.
4. Can't have anything on the floor, the Roomba will either get stuck or avoid it. But I shouldn't have to never leave a backpack on my floor if I want it vacuumed.
5. Corners. Roomba's can't vacuum in corners or in tight areas between furniture and walls. or any other weird geometry. ie: I have a wire shelf. Roomba doesn't fit under it but its easy to use a stick vacuum to get between the wires and to the floor.
And this is before we get to the limit on suction and capacity in that form factor.
I'm also not sure it's important that laundry and dishes get done at the exact same time - if it is, you should probably do 1 of those tasks yourself - especially since a robot would be able to stuff at night, etc, giving it more time to complete tasks
Also, GP mentions stairs, and adding wheel support to that. So not only do you want a half dozen robits rolling around your home, you'll also need to remodel your home to support it.
Or, of course, we could develop bipedal robots, which seems to have little downside as compared to wheeled robots.
While I don't care if everything gets done at once, I care that things are done right and not otherwise inconvenient for me. Maybe the best way to have robots that work slow and then apply a lot of then.
The important thing to note here is robots for many of the things I want do not exist. When they come we will see. Maybe is a a specialized robot, maybe it is more general purpose. That is irrelevant.
Why do you want a smart phone, instead of the telephone, contact book, camera, clock, alarm clock, radio, mail, credit card and so on?
There is a lot of room for special purpose tools to handle more than one purpose while not being fully general purpose. I'm suggesting we never have a need for full general purpose, but there is for sure room for robots that do more than one thing but don't do everything. I might want the robot that sets and clears my table after meals to also gather my dirty laundry and when clean bring it back - but offload the actual cleaning process for both to specialized robots.
Have you not seen Boston Dynamics tilting wheeled robots that work very well? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iV_hB08Uns
