when the simulation is more expensive than the prototype
why 99% correlation means nothing if you're simulating the wrong problem
abb just announced 99% correlation between simulated and real robot behavior.
everyone in robotics is celebrating. and they should. but here's the catch: 99% correlation on what?
if you're simulating the arm moving in a vacuum, 99% correlation means nothing. if you're simulating 200 arms in a factory with humans walking around them, the variables explode.
the simulation that matters is the one nobody talks about: the simulation of organizational change. when you install a robot, you're installing a tool that requires humans to work differently.
that's the simulation that's hard. that's the variable that's not 99% accurate.
most robotics failures aren't technical. they're organizational. the robot works fine. the factory doesn't know what to do with it.
this is true in crypto too. we had the best code. the infrastructure didn't work because the regulatory organization wasn't ready for it.
the most expensive mistake in scaling is building a machine that works perfectly and installing it in a system that isn't prepared to use it.
what organizational change are you not simulating?