Bipedal robots are kinda stuck in between a design flaw of what we want robots to look like, what we want robots to do, and what our technology is currently able to do.

Bipedal locomotion is just not the most efficient or simple mode of mobility for things like a flat factory floor, it's really only efficient when you are factoring unleveled ground. We just currently don't have the technology that allows bipedal efficiency across all terrain. That would require a synergistic system of optics and something that mimic propeoception. That's a ton of information being sent from a vast network of sensory input being sorted out by your spine and brain in real time.

Imo robots for a factory floor should be on tracks or wheels. Attempting to design a robot that's good for everything is just going to lead to a robot that is good for nothing. In engineering design should be made to fit a solution, designing for form and then trying to find a solution that form can solve is backwards and typically leads to terrible outcomes.

Yep, in engineering design should be solution oriented. You don't ever really want to first design the form and then try and see what solutions it may be able to solve.

A robot arm is a great start, you can then customize it further to your needs with different terminal end devices.

The main benefit of human hands is that they have an amazing amount of sensory input. If someone gets peripheral neuropathy and loses even a modest amount of that ability they can barely tie their shoes.

Human workers drag power cables all over construction sites. Why can’t a robot be built that’s smart enough to manage its own power cord? Power cord management seems simple compared to doing meaningful construction work.

I'm sure it seems simple from your desk

One thing: do you think that those power cables are permanently connected to the workers? Are you thinking about workers using extension cords for tools or the ones laying cable for the building, because it sure as fuck isn't simple to do either, which is why battery and petrol powered tools exist, and why the cableways are planned well in advance.

The wear and tear is a legitimate concern, but fixed industrial robots have been operating for many decades.

Only with maintenance and servicing by a human trained to see every potential flaw and monitor the equipment long term. Nothing, not even the most expensive equipment you can imagine, is without the need for regular maintenance.

You could have trade-specific robots. A drywall robot, a plumber robot, an electrician bot, etc. Each equipped only with those tools needed to complete just that trade. And instead of mechanical hands, they could simply be mounted.

Do you think that a construction site works the same way as a factory building cars? Just one long conveyors that shits out a fully built house? Workers move up, down and across the building dozens of times a day in a job doing multiple different jobs within their field, problem solving on the fly.

Who says the robots have to have batteries?

The market. How many cable powered mobile bipedal robots have you seen?

Human workers drag power cables all over construction sites.

No they don't? Have you ever been on a construction site? They have power cables, but they aren't attached to them as they constantly move across a construction site. They are used for a specific job then rolled up and taken to the next job. Dozens of people dragging their own powered chords across a building site would not only be dangerous, but a huge pain in the ass.

but fixed industrial robots have been operating for many decades. The wear issues are obviously solvable in the right context.

As I said in my original statement, laypeople such as yourself tend to underestimate the amount of force a moving object creates. Just engaging in something like jogging can have a ground force reaction of 3x your body weight, something like a small jump can exert up to 7x your body weight. That is with more pliable triplaner joints covered in soft tissues that help reduce that ground reaction by absorbing some of the force with higher degrees of range of motion. Something more rigid like a robotic foot/ankle or prosthetics actually experience much higher degrees of ground reaction force.

They might not even have legs. A welding robot could just be a welding tool on the end of a long boom arm.

The entirety of my argument was around humanoid robots....... That's why I said it would make more sense for a robot on a flat factory floor to have wheels or tracks. I'm not arguing against the idea of robots in general, just bipedal humanoid ones.