I swear I don't need a humanoid robot, give me a proper autonomous robot that cleans your house and I'm more than happy. Could be 40 cm tall, and look like a box, I don't care.
2. Nature has tested many different form factors and the human form dominated the others.
It's like skipping making kitchen blenders and vacuum cleaners and instead building a robot that will be mixing stuff manually or using a broom.
Manufacturing, where 90% of the process is generally automated has countless specialized ones. It would not make sense to put generic ones there, because humans really are doing very specific work in manufacturing.
But the generic robot is the endgame. I think Musk tries to achieve the endgame, probably too soon. FSD, interplanetary travel, etc
Birds are much better at being dinner. The most "successful" bird by a very wide margin is the broiler chicken.
Of the individual animals that are the same scale as humans, the vast majority exist either to be eaten by humans, serve humans, or be cute for humans.
The most successful wild animals of a similar size to humans have 10s of millions of individuals, not billions. Seals for example thrive by existing in places that humans are not suited for.
For instance: a quadruped base can be statically stable in case of power loss - a biped really can't.
You are correct to wonder this and almost every use case for a robot will be optimized to a non-human form factor.
Certainly there are tasks - like BJJ training partner - that require a human form factor. Almost everything else, including general, purpose, helper, robot, will be cheaper and more extensible in a non-human form factor.
One of your children remarked that nature has experimented with form factors and humans have won… To which I would point out that the upright, bipedal, form factor arose from the limits of oxygen processing, and heat dissipation… Neither limitation will be encountered in the same way with a robot…
… or perhaps I would point out that nature has, indeed, experimented with form factors and ants won - by a very large margin.
Besides that: I, personally, am totally fine with the current state of the technology.
