Time to live out my dreams of that guy from spiderman.
Show HN: Shoggoth Mini – A soft tentacle robot powered by GPT-4o and RL
31–40 of 110 posts
Re: Show HN: Shoggoth Mini – A soft tentacle robot powered by GPT-4o and RL
#32What a fascinating intersection of technology and human psychology! "One thing I noticed toward the end is that, even though the robot remained expressive, it started feeling less alive. Early on, its motions surprised me: I had to interpret them, infer intent. But as I internalized how it worked, the prediction error faded Expressiveness is about communicating internal state. But perceived aliveness depends on somet…
Furbies spring to mind... They were a similar shape and size and even had two goggling eyes, but with waggling ears instead of a tentacle.
They'd impress you initially but after some experimentation you'd realize they had a basic set of behaviors that were triggered off a combination of simple external stimuli and internal state. (this is the part where somebody stumbles in to say "dOn'T hUmAnS dO ThE sAmE tHiNg????")
Re: Show HN: Shoggoth Mini – A soft tentacle robot powered by GPT-4o and RL
#33"ah, you hesitated" no more so than on every single other question. the delay for the GPT to process a response is very unnerving. I find it worse than when the news is interviewing a remote site with a delay between responses. maybe if the eyes had LEDs to indicate activity rather than it just sitting there??? waiting for a GPT to do its thing is always going to force a delay especially when pushing the request to t…
> also, "GPT-4o continuously listens to speech through the audio stream," is going to be problematic This seems like a good place to leverage a wake word library, perhaps openWakeWord or porcupine. Then the user could wake the device before sending the prompt off to an endpoint. It could even have a resting or snoozing animation, then have it perk up when the wake word triggers. Eerie to view, I'm sure... https://git…
This also saves energy to the point of enabling this device to be wireless.
Re: Show HN: Shoggoth Mini – A soft tentacle robot powered by GPT-4o and RL
#34"ah, you hesitated" no more so than on every single other question. the delay for the GPT to process a response is very unnerving. I find it worse than when the news is interviewing a remote site with a delay between responses. maybe if the eyes had LEDs to indicate activity rather than it just sitting there??? waiting for a GPT to do its thing is always going to force a delay especially when pushing the request to t…
> the delay for the GPT to process a response is very unnerving I'm not sure I agree. The way the tentacle stops moving and shoots upright when you start talking to it gives me the intuitive impression that it's paying attention and thinking. Pretty cute!
it's the "thinking" frozen state while it uploads and waits for a GPT response that is unnerving. if the eyes did something to indicate progress is being made, then it would remove the desire to ask it if it is working or something. the last thing I want to be is that PM asking for a status update, but some indication it was actually processing the request would be ideal. even if there was a new animation with the tail like having it spinning or twirling like the ubiquitous spinner to show that something is happening
the snap to attention is a good example of it showing you feedback. the frozen state makes me wonder if it is doing anything or not
Re: Show HN: Shoggoth Mini – A soft tentacle robot powered by GPT-4o and RL
#35I e been wanting to do this with a basic stuffed animal now for a while. Just basic interactions with a child plus lessons and a voice would be game changing for the toy world.
Like using phones as babysitters, just 100x worse. I don't doubt someone's gonna invent it, but yikes. Imagine telling kiddo their beloved sentient toy is dead because mum and dad can't afford the ever-rising subscription fees anymore.
"Who was your best friend in your childhood?" "The AI teddy bear, definitely, I remember every single ad he would tell me, then I would nag my mom to buy me those toys, good times"
Re: Show HN: Shoggoth Mini – A soft tentacle robot powered by GPT-4o and RL
#36"ah, you hesitated" no more so than on every single other question. the delay for the GPT to process a response is very unnerving. I find it worse than when the news is interviewing a remote site with a delay between responses. maybe if the eyes had LEDs to indicate activity rather than it just sitting there??? waiting for a GPT to do its thing is always going to force a delay especially when pushing the request to t…
It clearly needs eyebrows like Johnny 5.
Re: Show HN: Shoggoth Mini – A soft tentacle robot powered by GPT-4o and RL
#37What a fascinating intersection of technology and human psychology! "One thing I noticed toward the end is that, even though the robot remained expressive, it started feeling less alive. Early on, its motions surprised me: I had to interpret them, infer intent. But as I internalized how it worked, the prediction error faded Expressiveness is about communicating internal state. But perceived aliveness depends on somet…
People have always been ascribing agency and sapience to things, from fire and flowing water in shamanistic religions, to early automatons that astonished people in the 18th century, to the original rudimentary chatbots, to ChatGPT, to – more or less literally – many other machines that may seem to have a "temperament" at times.
Re: Show HN: Shoggoth Mini – A soft tentacle robot powered by GPT-4o and RL
#38What a fascinating intersection of technology and human psychology! "One thing I noticed toward the end is that, even though the robot remained expressive, it started feeling less alive. Early on, its motions surprised me: I had to interpret them, infer intent. But as I internalized how it worked, the prediction error faded Expressiveness is about communicating internal state. But perceived aliveness depends on somet…
This feels similar to not finding a game fun once I understand the underly system that generates it. The magic is lessened (even if applying simple rules can generate complex outcomes, it feels determined)
Once you discover any minmaxxing strategy, games change from “explore this world and use your imagination to decide what to do” to “apply this rule or make peace with knowing that you are suboptimal”
Re: Show HN: Shoggoth Mini – A soft tentacle robot powered by GPT-4o and RL
#39What a fascinating intersection of technology and human psychology! "One thing I noticed toward the end is that, even though the robot remained expressive, it started feeling less alive. Early on, its motions surprised me: I had to interpret them, infer intent. But as I internalized how it worked, the prediction error faded Expressiveness is about communicating internal state. But perceived aliveness depends on somet…
Furbies spring to mind... They were a similar shape and size and even had two goggling eyes, but with waggling ears instead of a tentacle. They'd impress you initially but after some experimentation you'd realize they had a basic set of behaviors that were triggered off a combination of simple external stimuli and internal state. (this is the part where somebody stumbles in to say "dOn'T hUmAnS dO ThE sAmE tHiNg????"…
And we should all chip in together to buy that somebody a new keyboard.
Re: Show HN: Shoggoth Mini – A soft tentacle robot powered by GPT-4o and RL
#40Time to live out my dreams of that guy from spiderman.
That would be Doctor Octopus. Yes I would love A wearable suit with a number of tentacles for locomotion and subduing... I mean interacting.. with people.