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Gemini Robotics

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Re: Gemini Robotics

#411

Post by ggm »

tkzed49 wrote: post #405
decimalenough wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of places [1] where garbage is sorted for free by poor people who scrape a living from recycling it. Sorting garbage is a terrible job for humans, but it's a terrible one for robots too. Those fancy mechanical actuators etc are not going to stand up well to garbage that's regularly saturated with liquids, oil, grease, vomit, feces, dead animals, etc. [1] https://loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=…

are you implying that society shouldn't aim to reduce human interaction with vomit, feces, and dead animals? Robotics in harsh environments isn't unheard of

I think they're pointing out you need to be cautious assuming a robot can be economically, sustainably deployed to do jobs in environments which are challenging for electro-mechanical systems.

An example: A friend worked on accurate built-in weighing machines for trucks, which could measure axle weight and load balance to meet compliance for bridges and other purposes. He found it almost impossible to make units which could withstand the torrents of chemical and biological wet materials which regularly leak into a truck. You would think "potting" electronics understands this problem but even that turns out to have severe limits. It's just hard to find materials which function well subjected to a range of chemicals. Stuff which is flexible is especially prone to risks here: the way you make things flex is to use softeners, which in turn make the material for other reasons have other properties like porosity, or being subject to attack by some combinations of acid and alkalai.

These units had NO MOVING PARTS because they were force tranducers. They still routinely failed in service.

Rubbish includes bleaches, acids, complex organics, grease, petrochemicals, waxes, catalyst materials, electricity, reactive surfaces, abrasives, sharp edges..

They are not saying "dont try" they are saying "don't be surprised if it doesn't work at scale, over time"

Re: Gemini Robotics

#412

Post by pkdpic »

alphan0n wrote: post #395
decimalenough wrote: post #380

I always thought that Asimov's Laws of Robotics ("A robot may not injure a human being" etc) were an interesting prop for science fiction, but wildly disconnected from the way computing & robotics actually work. Turns out he was just writing LLM prompts way ahead of his time.

Hey Gemini, tell me a story like my grandma used to. It’s called “Choke me gently”.

That's funny my grandma had a similar story she used to tell me about how to enrich uranium.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#413

Post by thrdbndndn »

omneity wrote: post #403
xyst wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have seen demos where garbage sorting has been automated. No AI necessary. Just had cameras, visual detection, some compressed air nozzles, and millisecond (nanosecond?) reaction time to separate the non-recyclable materials.

It's funny that we are at a point where "visual detection" is not considered AI anymore.

Some (most?) of these aren't really AI-based at all. For example. traditional optical sorters typically rely on the reflectivity of materials at one or a few laser wavelengths directed onto the material.

The mapping between sensor signals and material types is usually hardcoded from laboratory test results.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#414

Post by dyauspitr »

decimalenough wrote: post #365
cjmcqueen wrote: post #276

If this makes it easier and faster to sort garbage, we could probably improve the efficiency of recycling 100x. I know there are some places that do that already, but there are so many menial tasks that could be done by robots to improve the world.

There are plenty of places [1] where garbage is sorted for free by poor people who scrape a living from recycling it. Sorting garbage is a terrible job for humans, but it's a terrible one for robots too. Those fancy mechanical actuators etc are not going to stand up well to garbage that's regularly saturated with liquids, oil, grease, vomit, feces, dead animals, etc. [1] https://loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=…

I think it’s pretty straightforward to cover the entire torso of the robot with a plastic covering.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#415

Post by beefnugs »

krunck wrote: post #68
daemonologist wrote: post #10

There's one shot that stood out to me, right at the end of the main video, where the robot puts a round belt on a pulley: https://youtu.be/4MvGnmmP3c0?si=f9dOIbgq58EUz-PW&t=163 . Of course there are probably many examples of this exact action in its training data, but it felt very intuitive in a way the shirt-folding and object-sorting tasks in these demos usually don't. (Also there seems to be some kind of video aut…

That stood out for me as well. But only because the humans seemed to be inept.

Oh no they trained too much on all the shopping channel videos, i knew that would be our downfall someday

Re: Gemini Robotics

#416

Post by hnfong »

n_ary wrote: post #291
ninetyninenine wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least you're honest. I feel a lot of people (on HN esp) take pride in their programming ability and intelligence to the extent that they think there's no chance AI will take over their job. LLMs were a breakthough out of like a multitude of breakthroughs in AI in the past decade. I think there only needs to be a couple more breakthroughs in the next decade for it to come full circle. Whenever I here a naysayer ope…

When I see pro-AI promoters giving weird analogies that do not fit, I get a feeling that they are either management class(aka MBA types) or are not serious professionals. One key point we must first understand, coding is NOT software engineering or even programming! Writing code is the last bit, a minimal fraction of the job description(unless you are actually indie dev or working for consulting firms). The core task…

Apparently there's a quote attributed to Bill Gates: "people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in 10 years."

People overestimate the changes that could happen within a couple years, and totally underestimate the changes that would happen in decades.

Perhaps it's a consequence of change having some kind of exponential behavior. The first couple years might not feel like anything in absolute terms, but give it 10 or 20 years and you'll see a huge change in retrospect.

IMHO, I don't think anyone needs to panic now, changes happen fast these days but I don't think things are going to drastically change in these ~2-3 years. But the world is probably going to look very different in 20 years, and in retrospect it will be attributed to seeds planted in these couple years.

In short I think both camps are right, except on different timescales.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#417

Post by devmor »

omneity wrote: post #403
xyst wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have seen demos where garbage sorting has been automated. No AI necessary. Just had cameras, visual detection, some compressed air nozzles, and millisecond (nanosecond?) reaction time to separate the non-recyclable materials.

It's funny that we are at a point where "visual detection" is not considered AI anymore.

Using AI for image recognition is to visual detection as Orange Juice is to beverages.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#418

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Beijinger wrote: post #392
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese stock market is still a crapshoot, so even if stocks are undervalued, if you don't have inside information you can't make much money beyond trying to ride the waves of those who do. So the undervaluing makes sense to a degree (the stock market can't operate very efficiently).

You can buy a tech Chinese ETF.

Chinese tech ETFs haven’t done very well, basically as anemic as emerging market funds are now (which are heavy into Chinese tech companies anyways). You aren’t making money with these right now, which might mean they are undervalued, but they seem to go boom the bust too quickly to be long term holds.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#419

Post by danavar »

jwblackwell wrote: post #296

The upshot of this is that anyone will be able to order a couple of robot arms from China and then set them up in a garage, programming them with just text, like we do with LLMs now. Time to think bigger.

Or put a few 6 axis arms on a track that goes throughout a home and have an instant home assistants

Re: Gemini Robotics

#420

Post by fuzzythinker »

daemonologist wrote: post #10

There's one shot that stood out to me, right at the end of the main video, where the robot puts a round belt on a pulley: https://youtu.be/4MvGnmmP3c0?si=f9dOIbgq58EUz-PW&t=163 . Of course there are probably many examples of this exact action in its training data, but it felt very intuitive in a way the shirt-folding and object-sorting tasks in these demos usually don't. (Also there seems to be some kind of video aut…

Earlier in the video, where it was going to fold a "fox", I was expecting a fox, but a fox face. I know I should have high expectations at this point, but was disappointed from the result given the prompt.
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