Physical AGI's fist steps will be in the fields, not factories
7 hours ago
- A farm worker named Miguel spends nine years weeding lettuce in California while separated from his family, living in a caravan and seeing his kids via phone.
- Telekin proposes using teleoperated humanoid robots for agriculture, allowing workers to control avatars remotely from home, avoiding relocation and poor living conditions.
- Autonomous robots are far from practical due to massive data needs; teleoperation generates revenue and training data simultaneously.
- A one-armed prototype revealed challenges like rigid arms breaking under force and latency tolerance around 150 ms for simple tasks.
- The company prioritizes low-stakes tasks like weeding first, then progresses to grading, milking, logistics, manufacturing, and care work.
- Teleoperation deletes geographic costs: operators in Central America earn more locally, growers pay less, and Telekin keeps a margin.
- Robotic weeders are specialized and expensive; teleoperated ones are flexible, low-capital, and can run continuously with shifts.
- Teleoperation aims to make physical work location-independent, ending the need for migrant labor camps and caravan living.