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OpenAI disbands its robotics research team

venturebeat.com

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Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team

#111

Post by 317070 »

taneq wrote: post #86
modeless wrote: post #68

I think most people believe that the problem with robots is that we don't have the right software, and if we just knew how to program them then today's robots could be incredibly useful in everyday life. From that perspective, this move from OpenAI seems dumb. That belief is wrong. Today's robots can't be made useful in everyday life no matter how advanced the software. The hardware is too inflexible, too unreliable,…

> Today's robots can't be made useful in everyday life no matter how advanced the software. The hardware is too inflexible, too unreliable, too fragile, too rigid, too heavy, too dangerous, too expensive, too slow. You're absolutely wrong. Anyone with basic electronics knowledge and a few hundred bucks can build a passable robot body out of hobby grade servos and 3D printed parts. If you're willing to spend $10k+ you…

No, and yes. You can build something. But even if you imagine tele-operating it 24/7, there is not going to be something relevant you can do with it around the house. It's not about the programming.

And that will not even be taking into account the time-to-maintenance of such a system.

On the other hand, Boston Dynamics' manifold, where they do the control of the dozens of hydraulical parts, is an absolute marvel of technology that shows what you can achieve with 45 (?) years of dedicated focus.

You might be able to teleoperate their robot for something useful in a human environment, and I guess that would be a gamechanger. But even there I want to wait-and-see if they can escape the fate of many that came before them.

Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team

#112

Post by taneq »

DantesKite wrote: post #96
modeless wrote: post #68

I think most people believe that the problem with robots is that we don't have the right software, and if we just knew how to program them then today's robots could be incredibly useful in everyday life. From that perspective, this move from OpenAI seems dumb. That belief is wrong. Today's robots can't be made useful in everyday life no matter how advanced the software. The hardware is too inflexible, too unreliable,…

I'm just imagining a sentient AGI rolling around in the human equivalent of a toaster, trying to bend the world to its will.

It would probably be shouting something like "EX-TER-MIN-ATE!"

Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team

#114

Post by PeterisP »

iandanforth wrote: post #76
modeless wrote: post #68

I think most people believe that the problem with robots is that we don't have the right software, and if we just knew how to program them then today's robots could be incredibly useful in everyday life. From that perspective, this move from OpenAI seems dumb. That belief is wrong. Today's robots can't be made useful in everyday life no matter how advanced the software. The hardware is too inflexible, too unreliable,…

You're demonstrably wrong. I can waldo any number of commercially available arms to do work humans do today. Surgeons waldo precise robots to conduct surgeries as a matter of course. Every piece of construction machinery operated by a human today is an incredibly useful robot lacking sufficiently capable software. "When the hardware is ready, the software will be comparatively easy to develop." I take it you've never…

The way I see it, the problem is that the "any number of commercially available arms" - the models that are beyond absolute toys and might be waldoed to do work humans do today - are staggeringly expensive compared to the humans they might replace. The cheap arms are ... toys, they can do a nifty demo, but they are really shit for doing any actual work, and while there are also good arms available, they're so expensive that they're tricky to afford even for experimental use, but in practical applications for the same price you can just get many outsourced workers to do that with actual hands instead.

The world will be ready for robotics revolution - creating immense demand for robotics software - when you'll be able to get a decent arm for the price of a fridge, not the price of a fancy car; just as we got the computer revolution not when we developed capable computers, but only after we developed affordable capable computers.

Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team

#115

Post by gradschoolfail »

syockit wrote: post #78
iandanforth wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're demonstrably wrong. I can waldo any number of commercially available arms to do work humans do today. Surgeons waldo precise robots to conduct surgeries as a matter of course. Every piece of construction machinery operated by a human today is an incredibly useful robot lacking sufficiently capable software. "When the hardware is ready, the software will be comparatively easy to develop." I take it you've never…

Off-topic but this is the first time I've seen waldo used as a verb. It's not in the Urban Dictionary, but from the way you use it I take it that it means "to find the correct thing out of the sea of so many similar things", right?

What you conjecture does sound like the defintion of “wally”, as in “where’s Wally?” Oh wait, it’s waldo in north america..

Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team

#116

Post by fogof »

texasbigdata wrote: post #56
madisonmay wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wojciech stated this pretty explicitly on his Gradient Dissent podcast a few months back.

After a bit of Googling are you referring to Wojciech, the head of YouTube?

Presumably they are referring to the OpenAI co-founder Wojciech Zaremba mentioned in the first few sentences of the article.

It seems madisonmay didn't read the article either, or they would have known that the podcast they were referring to was the exact source used by the article.

Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team

#117

Post by bboygravity »

high_derivative wrote: post #7
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 dont think this is cynical and I don't think it's a bad thing. OpenAI is not a huge org. The truth in 2021 is that not only is robotics 'just not there yet' in terms of being a useful vehicle for general intelligence research (obviously robotics research itself is still valuable), there is also nothing really pointing at this going to be the case in the next 5-10 years. Given that, unless they want to commercialise…

Sure. Yet consensus among "brain scientists" has long been that locomotion and the ability to explore the physical world is essential (or even central) to how consciousness develops and works in humans. Which in turn would seem pretty important for an institute working on cutting edge AI?

One of the reasons ML-based AI is pretty dumb still is possibly that this autonomous exploration side of AI is largely ignored.

It all seems to tie back into what Judea Pearl talks about in his "book of Why" (how you can't model intelligence without modelling learning of causal inference) or what Jeff Hawkins explores with his "reference frames of reference frames of the world" 1000 brains theory.

Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team

#118

Post by taneq »

317070 wrote: post #111
taneq wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today's robots can't be made useful in everyday life no matter how advanced the software. The hardware is too inflexible, too unreliable, too fragile, too rigid, too heavy, too dangerous, too expensive, too slow. You're absolutely wrong. Anyone with basic electronics knowledge and a few hundred bucks can build a passable robot body out of hobby grade servos and 3D printed parts. If you're willing to spend $10k+ you…

No, and yes. You can build something. But even if you imagine tele-operating it 24/7, there is not going to be something relevant you can do with it around the house. It's not about the programming. And that will not even be taking into account the time-to-maintenance of such a system. On the other hand, Boston Dynamics' manifold, where they do the control of the dozens of hydraulical parts, is an absolute marvel of…

Think of literally any piece of equipment that needs a human operator to operate it. If we had the software side figured out, none of these machines would have human operators.

Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team

#119

Post by taneq »

qwertox wrote: post #77
TheRealPomax wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dangerous, fast, reliable. Pick three.

One day a person will see a Spot robot and smile at its cuteness, then notice that there's no way to get past it, no way to have it not decide where you can and can't step towards. It won't have a gun, but that person will no longer have a reason to smile at them in the future. Later you will have a Spot robot chasing a person and getting it to stop, surrendering at the machine without being threatened by it, but jus…

You could shorten that down further to just "One day a Spot robot will have a gun."

Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team

#120

Post by bawana »

PeterisP wrote: post #114
iandanforth wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're demonstrably wrong. I can waldo any number of commercially available arms to do work humans do today. Surgeons waldo precise robots to conduct surgeries as a matter of course. Every piece of construction machinery operated by a human today is an incredibly useful robot lacking sufficiently capable software. "When the hardware is ready, the software will be comparatively easy to develop." I take it you've never…

The way I see it, the problem is that the "any number of commercially available arms" - the models that are beyond absolute toys and might be waldoed to do work humans do today - are staggeringly expensive compared to the humans they might replace. The cheap arms are ... toys, they can do a nifty demo, but they are really shit for doing any actual work, and while there are also good arms available, they're so expensi…

cars will be the first commercially available robots with widespread use. They will then be mutated into lawnmowers, farm equipment, commercial transport, etc. They will then get 'add-ons'- arms, legs, power tools. Because humans are mobile, widespread use of any robot will first require portability or mobility. Actually, the smartphone was our first robot-and it is portable.
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