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Gemini Robotics

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451–460 of 588 posts

Re: Gemini Robotics

#451

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.

Not only wildly disconnected, but purposefully created to show ambiguity of rules when interpreted by beings without empathy. All of Asimov's books that include the laws also include them being unintentionally broken through some edge-case.

> show ambiguity of rules when interpreted by beings without empathy

I don’t think that’s the main problem, there are a lot of moral dilemmas where even humans can’t agree what’s right.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#452

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.

I doubt anyone would use this kind of fancy machine to garbage handling until they become a commodity. I would bet that the first application would be to send those robots to trenches and foxholes...

Re: Gemini Robotics

#453
post #2

I am not sure whether the videos are representative of real life performance or it is a marketing stunt but sure looks impressive. Reminds of the robot arm in Iron Man 1.

> Reminds of the robot arm in Iron Man 1.

It's an impressive demo but perhaps you are misremembering Jarvis from Iron Man which is not only far faster but is effectively a full AGI system even at that point.

Sorry if this feels pedantic, perhaps it is. But it seems like an analogy that invites pedantry from fans of that movie.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#454
post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> human interaction with vomit, feces, and dead animals Humans can generally stand this without an issue. In fact you wouldn’t replace a lot of jobs that involves this : doctors, nurses, emergency workers, caregivers… It just happens to be difficult. But people love doing difficult things as long as it’s : a) rewarding, b) respected, and c) sufficiently paid

I'm pretty sure manually scavenging through garbage is none of those.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#455
post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP, but I think you might have missed their point, which I think was: if robots take away people's jobs, how will said people afford robots.

Nobody is doing house chores for me or remaining 99% of population...

> remaining 99% of population...

Well in developing countries you can hire people to do house chores.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#457

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=…

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

Why does it even need to be that type of robot, a conveyor that has items on it, but its a mesh, a camera looks, and if something can be sorted just use compressed air to move it to a collection area/bin. Put an electromagnet at the start of the conveyor that can move on a gantry to another bin.

Why's everything gotta have arms and graspers it's so inefficient.

Robots aren't climbing trees or chasing food. They don't need tails, either.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#458
post #401

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.

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.

Haha I just came up with that off the hip (never heard of, seen, or even contemplated sorting garbage before) because the idea that this needs articulation and graspers is the height of "we're VC funded and don't care about anything except runway". Laughable.

Re: Gemini Robotics

#459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody cares about the efficiency of recycling. Existing pro-recycling orgs will want no part of this and do what they can to stop it. This is because if it becomes easy then it won’t matter and all the marketing, non profit orgs and everything goes away, making it a non problem. While I am sure you will find people who will like these ideas and want them, they will have zero control. At this point recycling is a mar…

just pet bottle recycling by itself is a multi-billion dollar industry globally [1] [1]( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PET_bottle_recycling )

Soda bottles can be washed and nearly directly used by 3d printers. Spiral cut the bottle, Thermoform it into a continuous cylinder (it folds it in and heats it to make it solid, then immediately fed to the printer or spooled.

If plastic recycling was actually being done and was profitable I don't think there'd be a Pacific garbage patch and pfas in my heart right now.

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