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Re: undefined

#11
post #7

One more step towards the 'Terminator' scenario. And everyone said it would be decades away. Edit. So many downvotes -- here have a /s (sarcasm)

They did, in 1984 and 1991. It's now been decades. It's even almost two decades since people felt it was now ok to call a robotics company Cyberdyne[0]. Decades have passed, and with pretty much no actual surprises on the way, we're steadily marching towards creating robots with the power to destroy humanity. We haven't made much progress on time travel though, so whatever happens, we probably won't have a chance at…

Skynet was supposed to become self-aware on August 29, 1997

Since it didn't happen, maybe a Terminator Genisys type reset of the timeline has occurred. So we have a few more decades buffer again, to maybe 2050?

Re: undefined

#12
post #8
post #4

Robotics is such a lovely world. For the hobbyists, I'm really curious about how to get the home-brew robotics training lab working at home? The last time I reviewd this, you'd spend thousands of dollars just to get a reasonable robotic arm. Right now, if work is relegated to the rich research departments of mega corporations, this certainly doesn't seem more interesting than a corporate press release..

This is false to very large degree, you have simulations for robotics, and you can buy/build your self cheaper versions.

It is also likely even after you purchase a physical arm you'd prefer to use the simulation as the feedback loop is both testable and much faster.

Re: undefined

#13
post #4

Robotics is such a lovely world. For the hobbyists, I'm really curious about how to get the home-brew robotics training lab working at home? The last time I reviewd this, you'd spend thousands of dollars just to get a reasonable robotic arm. Right now, if work is relegated to the rich research departments of mega corporations, this certainly doesn't seem more interesting than a corporate press release..

Depends on what part of robotics you want to explore. You can get a quadruped with an arm for around 400-1000$ if you don't mind it being small, and with a limited set of sensors.

It becomes expensive when you want an robot arm with high dexterity and torque-sensors, which is often a requirement for some tasks, but position-based control can be done on cheaper models.

Re: undefined

#14
If it was tethered to the floor, I would trust a good LLM in 2023 with folding laundry, but very little else. No dishes. No letting kids or pets bear it. No plumbing. I wouldn't even let it wander around cleaning stuff, because I'd expect it to knock over things.

Re: undefined

#16

If it was tethered to the floor, I would trust a good LLM in 2023 with folding laundry, but very little else. No dishes. No letting kids or pets bear it. No plumbing. I wouldn't even let it wander around cleaning stuff, because I'd expect it to knock over things.

True. Occasionally the thing builds an entire cathedral out of nowhere and you're just shocked.

Re: undefined

#17
post #4

Robotics is such a lovely world. For the hobbyists, I'm really curious about how to get the home-brew robotics training lab working at home? The last time I reviewd this, you'd spend thousands of dollars just to get a reasonable robotic arm. Right now, if work is relegated to the rich research departments of mega corporations, this certainly doesn't seem more interesting than a corporate press release..

Depends on what part of robotics you want to explore. You can get a quadruped with an arm for around 400-1000$ if you don't mind it being small, and with a limited set of sensors. It becomes expensive when you want an robot arm with high dexterity and torque-sensors, which is often a requirement for some tasks, but position-based control can be done on cheaper models.

Are you taking about the unitree quadrupeds?

Quadruped with an arm for <$1000 would be a steal. Got any recommendations?

Re: undefined

#18
Why does Google actually build stuff like this? What is their actual end game and how does it relate to what they actually do as a business?

They're an advertising company with a mission to "organize the worlds information", pivoting to robots? Do they need robots to organize the worlds information?

No idea how big of a breakthrough this is, but it is absolutely undeniable that Googles PR team is going wild on anything AI since OpenAI provided them with their first real existential crisis / code red.

Re: undefined

#19
This seem like an cool upgrade from RT1, judging from the result. It seems to now also output the delta of the end-effector pose, which was previously handled by a different motion planner.

It does seem like this work (and a lot of robot learning works) are still stuck on position/velocity control and not impedance control. Which is essentially output where to go, either closed-loop with a controller or open-loop with a motion planner. This seem to dramatically lower the data requirement but it feel like a fundamental limit to what task we can accomplish.

The reason robot manipulation is hard is because we need to take in to the account not just what's happening in the world but also how our interaction alters it and how we need to react to that.

Robot Learning right now is either Reinforcement Learning or Imitation Learning (often latter) and I'm not sure how one would collect data that capture this.

Edit: I'm surprised Google still do robotics work, I thought Everyday Robotics was shut down [1]

[1] https://www.therobotreport.com/alphabet-closes-everyday-robo...

Re: undefined

#20
post #4

Robotics is such a lovely world. For the hobbyists, I'm really curious about how to get the home-brew robotics training lab working at home? The last time I reviewd this, you'd spend thousands of dollars just to get a reasonable robotic arm. Right now, if work is relegated to the rich research departments of mega corporations, this certainly doesn't seem more interesting than a corporate press release..

Depends on what part of robotics you want to explore. You can get a quadruped with an arm for around 400-1000$ if you don't mind it being small, and with a limited set of sensors. It becomes expensive when you want an robot arm with high dexterity and torque-sensors, which is often a requirement for some tasks, but position-based control can be done on cheaper models.

I thought by now there'd be kits like plastic airplane models. Injection-mold a bunch of parts, connected by sprues, and throw in the odd bits of (metal) hardware where they are critical to the whole.
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