siekmanj

Judging from recent improvement it doesn't appear to be a dead end technology, but I guess time will tell!

yes, for heavy lift and bulk manipulation high gear ratios are still necessary. Maybe someday cable drives will be feasible. No question that we are not at human performance yet or that there isn't a ways to go. This is the specific claim I was arguing against:

> There has been no innovation in robotic actuators since Honda's Asimo.

I believe we are 100% making tangible progress and the technology is improving faster than it ever has.

Actuators on modern humanoids use cycloids or planetary reducers, not strain waves. They are much more compliant and backdrivable because of the huge reduction in reflected inertia.

I could not disagree more with the claim about no improvement in robotic actuators.

The torque density and price of actuators has fallen dramatically since Ben Katz's MIT work on mini cheetah. The actuators on the Unitree G1 based on that work are powerful for their size and near quasi-direct-drive. The motors on the BD E-Atlas are completely passively cooled and appear to have really good torque density. Actuators have never been improving faster than they are now.

"RL: A Deep Reinforcement Learning Framework" seems to have been hallucinated, does not exist.

True, but it's not trying to be multi-threaded, just concurrent.

From some cursory googling:

Afghanistan peak US troops: 102,000 (2011)

Gulf war peak US troops: 700,000 (1990-1991)

Iraq peak US troops: range from 168,000 - 192,000 (2007)

Vietnam peak US troops: 543,000 (1969)

Korea peak US troops: 320,000, unclear what year

edit: obviously, Russia's involvement in Ukraine over the last few days would be by far the biggest operation in Europe since WW2. Just not globally (by a long shot).

This is an amazing outcome. The license cost was a huge barrier to entry and the progress of deep RL generally.