Technology

The point with factory work is that you don’t need half of what this robot can do if you change the plan of the factory a bit.

So no I don’t think the idea here is for standard factory work.

You're changing the problem that is being solved. The CURRENT work process is to use a human with all the benefits and detriments of a human. The idea would be to drop one of these Atlas robots in without changing the work or work environment. Perhaps there is a more efficient human doing the work from 8am-5pm and only some work needed from 5pm-8am. An Atlas robot would be perfect use case here. You don't have to redesign the work or the environment for a human or robot to switch out to do the same work.

What you're describing is changing the nature of the task or the environment to optimize for a robot.

• Flat floors? Just use wheels instead of legs.
• Short distance to cover? Drop the entire torso and head and just be an arm with a camera.

Boston Dynamics already has that robot. Its called Handle:

As you can see, its a wheeled robot with an arm, but this robot couldn't do the task that the Atlas robot can in the video because it doesn't have the fine motor control or fingers to grasp the engine covers, nor does Handle have the ability to deal with those soft pliable racks where Atlas is placing the covers.