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Gemini Robotics

deepmind.google

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Re: Gemini Robotics

#141

Post by dingaling »

hlfshell wrote: post #118
zoogeny wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the topic of better management, I can't believe they haven't replaced Sundar Pichai. Satya Nadella by comparison really seemed to have turned MS around. Larry Page was making the rounds when all of this AI hype started. He seemed to have a much more aggressive stance, even ruffling feathers about how many hours Google employees should be working to compete in AI. And there is obviously Demis Hassabis who is the mo…

Google (Alphabet's) stock price has generally gone up 200% in the past 5 years. That is the only reason he is there, and that is the only way he is judged.

But why does that matter to Google? They'll never need to issue more stock to raise cash; last year they had $200 billion in gross profit, money they literally didn't find a reason to spend.

Imagine being so replete with cash that after paying all your costs, all your salaries, all your R&D - you still can't find a way to spend 200 billion, so you threw a chunk of it away as tax and put the rest in the bank.

The price of a share should be utterly irrelevant to them.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#143

Post by tdb7893 »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #37

Google is probably the most undervalued tech company there is currently, by far : 1.) Has cutting edge in house AI models (Like OpenAI, Anthropic, Grok, etc.) 2.) Has cutting edge in house AI hardware acceleration (Like Nvidia) 3.) Has (likely) cutting edge robotics (Like Boston Dynamics, Tesla, Figure) 4.) Has industry leading self driving taxis (Like Tesla wants) 5.) Has all the other stuff that Google does. (Like…

My experience there was that good tech was held back by an inability to have a consistent long term vision. My and many of my friends were on lots of projects that would get abruptly "reprioritized", often after yet another re-org. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know what the solution is but it didn't give me confidence in their ability to execute on a long term vision, it was very demoralizing and my work ended up feeling sorta pointless (which having talked to someone recently about the state of the projects I worked on it sorta was pointless). Though that being said it's a big company so it's very possible that other orgs will execute more effectively.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#144

Post by 2wrist »

delichon wrote: post #13

I read too much scifi, and almost none of it has updated on the current state of AI. For example spaceships swarming with low skill level crew members that swab the decks and replace air filters. Or depending on a single engineer to be the only one with the crucial knowledge to save the ship in an emergency. If scifi authors aren't keeping up it's hard to expect the rest of us to. But the macro and micro economic cha…

A bit of a jump but have a look at Pantheon the tv series, it is on Netflix at the moment. Based on a book by Ken Liu, the end of the series, blew my mind.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#145

Post by giancarlostoro »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #37

Google is probably the most undervalued tech company there is currently, by far : 1.) Has cutting edge in house AI models (Like OpenAI, Anthropic, Grok, etc.) 2.) Has cutting edge in house AI hardware acceleration (Like Nvidia) 3.) Has (likely) cutting edge robotics (Like Boston Dynamics, Tesla, Figure) 4.) Has industry leading self driving taxis (Like Tesla wants) 5.) Has all the other stuff that Google does. (Like…

Google had really great products, that almost everyone I knew used, then they scrapped them for new shiny thing that competed. The one that angers me most is Google Talk, it used to work with any XMPP client, until it did not, and now its long since dead. They made their own version of tinychat (hangouts) and then mostly killed that too.

Obligatory overview of things Google has killed, because its easy to forget some of the gems:

https://killedbygoogle.com/

Re: Gemini Robotics

#146

Post by croissants »

delichon wrote: post #13

I read too much scifi, and almost none of it has updated on the current state of AI. For example spaceships swarming with low skill level crew members that swab the decks and replace air filters. Or depending on a single engineer to be the only one with the crucial knowledge to save the ship in an emergency. If scifi authors aren't keeping up it's hard to expect the rest of us to. But the macro and micro economic cha…

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Blindsight. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that it is a book about the place of human intelligence in a universe with other options, both biological and artificial.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#147

Post by finnh »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #80
delichon wrote: post #13

I read too much scifi, and almost none of it has updated on the current state of AI. For example spaceships swarming with low skill level crew members that swab the decks and replace air filters. Or depending on a single engineer to be the only one with the crucial knowledge to save the ship in an emergency. If scifi authors aren't keeping up it's hard to expect the rest of us to. But the macro and micro economic cha…

In The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler there are fleets of fishing boats that are all controlled by AI to maximize the catch. Each boat also has it's own AI that can act somewhat independently, but they all communicate with the main corporate AI as well as with other boats in the vicinity. Initially the boats are all fully automated and have robots doing all the work, but in the ocean environment the robots tend to…

Of course, we already live in this reality - just substitute "Corporation" for "AI".

Re: Gemini Robotics

#148

Post by spankalee »

echelon wrote: post #123
spankalee wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On one hand, I agree with you, on the other, as a former Googler I think that "just needs better coaching" is a huge barrier in Google's current corporate culture and environment. Google as a whole has a long history of not being able to successfully build great products out of great tech. That seems wrong from looking at search, Gmail, Maps*, Docs*, etc., but I think these are cases where a single great insight or i…

Google needs to be broken up. The DOJ / FTC want to do it. There's far too much value and scale in the company and they can't even focus their energies appropriately. YouTube is the most valuable media property in the world. As a standalone company, it would still outperform Netflix on the basis of ads alone. The monopolistic stuff Google is pulling off with Chrome/Android/Search is unfathomably market distorting, so…

Maybe, but IMO the DOJ's current proposal would be harmful for users and the web. Chrome is not worth as much to anyone else what it is to Google. And with Google barred from paying for default search engine placement, all browser investment everywhere will be severely cut back. Mozilla will probably finally fall, Safari will stagnate, and Chrome will rot.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#149

Post by EncomLab »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #117
aithrowawaycomm wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not a high standard, I am sure you could train a chimp to pass this test[1]. If you know how to use a standard coffee maker and live in a typical American home, and the test is done in an typical American home with a standard coffee maker, you can definitely pass this test 100% of the time. I understand that many people don't live in America and don't know how to use a coffee maker. That is 100% irrelevant. The…

"locate the filters, locate the coffee mugs, locate a measuring spoon" in a random house in America is a very high standard. We’ll have to agree to disagree on that. If you teleport me into a random house, I’ll likely spend at least an hour trying and failing at that task, and most of their cabinets and drawers will be open by the end of it. It also excludes corner cases like "what if they don’t have any filters"? Sh…

You can't honestly claim that it would take you an hour to accomplish such a high probability task - have you never visited the house of a friend or family and had to open a few cabinets to find a water glass or a bowl or a spoon?

As for the point of corner cases being hard - I mean that's the point here, isn't it?

Re: Gemini Robotics

#150

Post by Rastonbury »

ein0p wrote: post #106
Workaccount2 wrote: post #37

Google is probably the most undervalued tech company there is currently, by far : 1.) Has cutting edge in house AI models (Like OpenAI, Anthropic, Grok, etc.) 2.) Has cutting edge in house AI hardware acceleration (Like Nvidia) 3.) Has (likely) cutting edge robotics (Like Boston Dynamics, Tesla, Figure) 4.) Has industry leading self driving taxis (Like Tesla wants) 5.) Has all the other stuff that Google does. (Like…

You forgot: has an active antitrust investigation which could in theory split the company in unpredictable ways.

They also forgot GCP!
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