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Gemini Robotics

deepmind.google

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Re: Gemini Robotics

#151

Post by gertlex »

tediousgraffit1 wrote: post #101
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…

I'm ignorant, what do they have in 3) cutting edge robotics?

It's somewhat debatable based on lack of results that have made it to market.

In addition to the other comment mentioning Boston Dynamics, they are also the employers of a lot of folks that were formerly at the Open Source Robotics Foundation(?) (OSRF) (it's more complicated than that) which is behind the ROS1/ROS2 framework that are widely (not universally) used; They also have an internal division or whatever, Intrinsic Robotics (or is it Intrinsic AI? too lazy to check). Plenty of smart people that I've met are involved there!

But I remain skeptical of the top level comment's take, given the lack of any robotics product execution of note by Google for a very long time now.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#152

Post by [deleted] »

ekidd wrote: post #40
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…

> For example spaceships swarming with low skill level crew members that swab the decks and replace air filters. This is largely a function of what science fiction you read. Military SF is basically about retelling Horatio Hornblower stories in space, and it has never been seriously grounded in science. This isn't a criticism, exactly. But if you look at, say, the award-winning science fiction of the 90s, for example…

[deleted]

Re: Gemini Robotics

#153

Post by summerlight »

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…

And I think this is the problem. They have all the necessary pieces and are not yet very successful at stitching them together. Google has a very strong foundation and execution skills but failed to effectively govern it.

Not sure if this is "vision" or "management" or whatever, it feels like that they're just self shackling in every single possible direction. There are something like 50 different teams involved at a major launch and they make some process/infra requirement/review/integration or whatever, from good will. Imagine how much time, effort and compromises you would need to appease all of them.

I think the recent memo from Sergey shows that the leadership finally acknowledges this problem at heart. But solving it is a different story of course. But a long time disconnection between IC, managements and leadership has been the culprit of this problem and at least some awareness might not hurt.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#154

Post by tim333 »

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…

As a consumer I don't have any great desire to see it broken up. Youtube has worked well for me for years. If they spun it off it would probably get way more aggressive in trying to extract money and sell data.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#155

Post by infogrind »

chrisweekly wrote: post #57
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…

Slightly off-topic, but why is it still referred to as "Google" and not "Alphabet"?

Names stick, it’s as simple as that. In most practical situations (such as this discussion), the distinction between Google and Alphabet doesn’t matter.

I once tried to rebrand an in-house, purely dev facing product. I failed.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#156

Post by deepGem »

spankalee wrote: post #50
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…

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…

Waymo clearly stands out as an exception amongst all moonshots that Google went after. However, they don't seem to have that one axis advantage in Waymo. I can't believe they didn't double, triple down on their efforts to build a fully integrated car. Compared to Apple, they were at a much better position to do this because of all the underlying tech/models and research.

May be that's the problem - that there is no one rallying individual for Waymo. They should just spin it off and make it an independent private company and retain % ownership.

I somehow feel Google will be way better if it's run like Berkshire, the CEO just focuses on capital allocation and let's the managers do their jobs in their respective companies - YT, Waymo, search, cloud, deepmind.

I'm not sure that culture can dissipate in Google at this juncture.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#157

Post by spankalee »

hlfshell wrote: post #86
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 is very much suffering from the classic Innovator's Dilemma [1]; a side effect of being too focused on stock price and not long term planning. A better management with long term thinking would utilize Google's enormous base of talented engineers far better. [1] https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=46

I do not think it's even innovator's dilemma.

Take chat, one of Google's biggest fumbles. They had a good thing with Gtalk. Really screwed things up with Hangouts (thanks, Vic!), added the weird Allo to the mix, almost turned things around, and then brought in Chat to compete with Slack as opposed to AIM...WhatsApp.

If they had just incrementally invested in chat, even if they swapped out back ends, they could have kept most of their user base, maybe even have grown it. Gchat was pretty popular, even during the rise of Facebook Messenger.

But they screwed around with the public-visible product side of things too much, and revealed their tech stack and org chart as product changes. There was no product-first, continuity-oriented planning.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#158

Post by rs186 »

karmasimida wrote: post #134
dhosek wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve seen too much inaccurate info from AI to have any trust in it. From declaring the Eiffel Tower the world’s largest Ferris wheel to claiming that hippos can be trained to perform complex medical procedures, it all seems a hot mess. You might say, yeah, but I can spot those mistakes, but can you really? I showed my fifth-grade son the result of asking if hippos were intelligent and the absurdity of the answer didn…

If you connect ChatGPT to a traditional search engine, it will suffer much less such issues. It essentially digests 100 webpages for you, then render it in a single answer. For sure, hallucinations will always be there, but I don't think it will hinder its take over, the usage trumps its shortcomings

This.

Yesterday I tried asking ChatGPT "Can an Amazon L6 software engineer afford a house in [location]", without explicitly using the search mode. It went to levels.fyi to look up salary and redfin to look up housing price (exactly how I would have done it myself), and gave me a reasonable answer that agrees with my own analysis, and is definitely much faster than clicking things around myself.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#159

Post by stainablesteel »

i love these robots and all but it's still the world's most expensive paper folder. none of these are energy efficient enough for production or are ever going to be as profitable as a simpler automated process that misses some targets every now and then

Re: Gemini Robotics

#160

Post by shanemhansen »

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…

I disagree. As a former googler, that company has never had a problem creating IP.

It has a problem executing on that tech to create great products. It has a real problem with canning any project that doesn't have a billion users within a year.

Honestly they fail to understand how lucky they got with doubleclick and culturally the entire project evaluation criteria is based around the assumption that they can do another computer science rain dance to make it rain ads-level cash.

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