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gwern comments on Discussion of concrete near-to-middle term trends in AI - Less Wrong Discussion
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I find it strange too. I was looking at Roombas 2 months ago because I was wondering if it would make cleaning up after my cat easier, and I experienced a feeling of deja vu looking at the Amazon listings: "these prices, physical shapes, features, and ratings... they look almost exactly the same as I remember them being a decade ago".
I don't know. It's not like robotics in general has stagnated - iRobot has done a lot of robots beside the Roomba (and has pretty good sales, although I wonder how much comes from their military customers, which they seem to really be focusing on); and the robots that General Dynamics has been showing off, like their latest "Spot" quadruped, are simply astonishing.
I wonder if Roombas are trapped in a local optimum: you can't improve a small disc-shaped wheeled robot vaccuum much beyond what it is now without completely changing the design (appendages like hands would help it get unstuck or pick up stuff) or much improved battery technology?
Roomba's "intelligence" is a bag of random numbers with some constraints on it. Their competitor is a bunch brainier in terms of room mapping and general navigation; for instance, it doesn't require a special beacon to tell it where a doorway is.
If true, that just sharpens the question: why isn't iRobot improving their Roombas' software if a competitor is doing so?
They're not selling brains; they're selling convenience?
Stupid Roombas don't seem very convenient. (I don't think people enjoy getting their Roombas out of corners or stuck places.) Or do you mean that the Neatos, despite their greater intelligence, are much more inconvenient in some other way (also explaining why Roombas continue to sell as much as they do)?