This feels like a strong sign that AGI is quite close now
Why do you think that?
OpenAI disbands its robotics research team
21–30 of 128 posts
Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team
#22Curious 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.
Sounds like a perfect domain to explore robust methods that can’t overfit to silly details.
Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team
#23This 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.
> replace human labour with general bipedal robots
No need for bipeds, car factories employ dumb robot arms, no humans needed. Not very general purpose robots though.
The first country/company to create robots that can be instructed similar to a humans to do any job will indeed have great benefits, but how long until that happens? Not within any amount of time that an investor wants to see. I'm unsure if I will ever see that in my life (counting on ~60 years to go still maybe?)
Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team
#24This 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.
Imagine that there only needs to be ten people to “run the world”. What is the population size going to be then? Ten? As large as possible? Somehow it seems that the way we’re headed, it’ll be ten plus some administrative overhead.
Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team
#25This 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.
We are decades away from being able to build a general bipedal robot that can snake out a plugged toilet or dig a trench or nail shingles to a roof. It's just not a rational goal yet. Aim lower.
Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team
#26This 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.
If robots are doing all the work how will people make money to buy the stuff the robots make? Is Jeff Bezos going to own the whole world or are we going to have another French revolution?
Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team
#27The cynical-but-likely-accurate take is that researching language modeling has a higher ROI and lower risk than researching robotics.
Yes. Also, regular ML researchers sit at tables with laptops. Robotics people need electronics labs and electronics technicians, machine shops and machinists, test tracks and test track staff... If you have to build stuff, and you're not in a place that builds stuff on a regular basis, it takes way too long to get stuff built.
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Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team
#28This 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.
We are decades away from being able to build a general bipedal robot that can snake out a plugged toilet or dig a trench or nail shingles to a roof. It's just not a rational goal yet. Aim lower.
This is correct. Right now our best and brightest can only build demos that fall apart the moment something is out of place. Humanoid or even partial humanoid (wheeled base) robots are far from ready for general purpose deployment.
Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team
#29This 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.
If robots are doing all the work how will people make money to buy the stuff the robots make? Is Jeff Bezos going to own the whole world or are we going to have another French revolution?
We should really endeavor to build collectively owned institutions that can purchase and operate the robots (and physical space) we depend on.
EDIT: Imagine the "credit unions" I mention in the following linked comment, but holding homes and manufacturing space to be used by members. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27860696
Re: OpenAI disbands its robotics research team
#30This 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.
> replace human labour with general bipedal robots No need for bipeds, car factories employ dumb robot arms, no humans needed. Not very general purpose robots though. The first country/company to create robots that can be instructed similar to a humans to do any job will indeed have great benefits, but how long until that happens? Not within any amount of time that an investor wants to see. I'm unsure if I will ever…
One thing that struck me recently was that the famous imagenet competition that was won by a neural net took place in 2012. So we have made fantastic advances in ten years. But I'd still say at best robots like you describe are 20 years away, and that's a long time horizon for a small organization.