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OpenAI disbands its robotics research team

venturebeat.com

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Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team

#11

Post by Syntonicles »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #8
minimaxir wrote: post #4

The cynical-but-likely-accurate take is that researching language modeling has a higher ROI and lower risk than researching robotics.

I was wondering why OpenAI's gym was archived on GitHub this pivot seems more sense.

Can you explain what that means? I'm familiar with OpenAI Gym, I've been away from Github for a long time.

Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team

#13

Post by ansk »

Is the prevailing opinion that progress in reinforcement learning is dependent on algorithmic advances, as opposed to simply scaling existing algorithms? If that is the case, I could see this decision as an acknowledgement that they are not well positioned to push the frontier of reinforcement learning - at least not compared to any other academic or industry lab. Where they have seen success, and the direction it seems they are consolidating their focus, is in scaling up existing algorithms with larger networks and larger datasets. Generative modeling and self supervised learning seem more amenable to this engineering-first approach, so it seems prudent for them to concentrate their efforts in these areas.

Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team

#14

Post by varelse »

Fascinating in the wake of Fei Fei Li's lab publishing significant work on embodied intelligence...

https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.02202

Not to mention a bunch of relatively inexpensive reinforcement learning research relying on consumer knockoffs of Spot from Boston Dynamics...

Really does seem like they are following the money and while there's nothing wrong with that it's also nothing like their original mission.

Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team

#16

Post by marcinzm »

samstave wrote: post #2

Curious idea: With the mentioning that they can shift their focus to domains with extensive data that they can build models of action with etc... Why not try the following (If easily possible) --- Take all the objects on the various 3D warehouses (thingiverse, and all the other 3d modeling repos out there) -- and have a system whereby an OpenAI 'Robotics' platform can virtually learn to manipulate and control a 3D mo…

I suspect it's because at a certain point detailed physics matters and simulating things well enough is really hard. A robotic arm might flex just a bit, a gear may not mesh quite correctly, signals may take just a bit longer to get somewhere, a grip might slip, a plastic object might break from too much force, etc, etc.

Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team

#17

Post by the-dude »

Syntonicles wrote: post #11
zitterbewegung wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering why OpenAI's gym was archived on GitHub this pivot seems more sense.

Can you explain what that means? I'm familiar with OpenAI Gym, I've been away from Github for a long time.

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Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team

#20

Post by fartcannon »

This is lunacy. The first country/company to replace human labour with general bipedal robots, will reap wealth beyond imagination. The short sitedness is astonishing, if you ask me.

I genuinely believe how we as a society act once human labour is replaced is first aspect of the great filter.

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