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Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company

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Re: Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company

#201

Post by IshKebab »

amirhirsch wrote: post #86

Sensing and control are certainly part of the problem, but to me it always felt like a major limit to automation was the quality of actuators. It's much more than just a control problem to make robot hands with the sensitivity, acuity, and dexterity required to crack an egg, thread a needle, and play Chopin.

I agree, and the cost. Automation hardware is just fundamentally really really expensive. I guess part of that is due to the small market, but I'm a bit skeptical that they will ever bring robot arms to the masses just because robot arms are super expensive.

The ability to plug in cables and whatnot looks like a useful ability but I'm guessing this will just be sort of like really good traditional robotic control software rather than anything really fundamentally different.

Re: Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company

#202

Post by downWidOutaFite »

downWidOutaFite wrote: post #95
falcor84 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>noone wants to work those jobs anymore The implication of that in turn is that these US companies aren't willing to pay at a rate that would be competitive in the market

The other implication is that the US is unwilling to take advantage of the millions of people that want to immigrate here.

I'm guessing this comment got down voted because Americans are against immigration in general. But whether its a good idea or not the fact remains that our desirability as a place to live could be used to satisfy any labor shortage.

Re: Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company

#203

Post by marmada »

I notice a lot of pessimism -- presumably at some point someone is going to build much better robots than the ones we have today. (Surely we are not anywhere close to the end game of robotics). I'm inclined to believe Google, with all of its resources, has as good a shot as any.

Re: Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company

#204

Post by skinnymuch »

morcheeba wrote: post #192
jliptzin wrote: post #180

How is it possible that we don’t have robots to do very basic household tasks such as fold laundry by now?

I currently have a robot washing my clothes, another robot washing my dishes, a third robot vacuuming my floors. Cybernetic systems adjust the temperature in my house and water my lawn. I even have a little robot I keep in the freezer to make ice cubes while I sleep. So, two answers - 1. folding laundry is a difficult technical challenge. 2. when we get a robot to do that task, we won't call it a robot.

If it has an arm sort of thing doing it, we very well may. If your drying machine had an arm putting clothing up on pins in your backyard vs being a box you dump clothing into, we’d likely call it a robot.

Some people do refer to automatic vacuums and other things that move automatically robots too.

Re: Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company

#205

Post by acevesj »

khazhoux wrote: post #185
okareaman wrote: post #126

I really dislike this writing structure of "before I get to the point, let me tell you a story about my life" Edit: I'm not alone, https://style.mla.org/dont-bury-the-lede/

I can understand why the style may seem offputting, but the thing to understand is that it has been traditionally very hard to engage with the public on this topic of robotic advancement. In fact, I know a bit about this myself, having been in the robotics space for over a decade. But my own struggles in the field only reflect a longer trend, which I can even trace back to my grandfather. Growing up in a strict Luthe…

I knew this was going nowhere and still read through it with excitement

Re: Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company

#206

Post by compiler-guy »

eps wrote: post #178
SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those have gotten way worse. It’s an SEO thing right?

It's viewed as a DRM measure. Recipes are not copyrightable unless they are attached to a story. It's probably an urban legend, but can't blame poor food bloggers from acting on it.

It's not an urban legend in the United States:

====

Based on this reasoning, the United States Copyright Office Compendium, the Office’s manual for examiners, states that a mere listing of ingredients or contents is not copyrightable, as lists are not protected by copyright law (chapter 314.4(F)). The Office has also stated that a “simple set of directions” is uncopyrightable.

In addition, courts have found that recipes are wholly factual and functional, and therefore uncopyrightable. As the Sixth Circuit described in Tomaydo-Tomahdo, LLC v. Vozary, “the list of ingredients is merely a factual statement, and as previously discussed, facts are not copyrightable. Furthermore, a recipe’s instructions, as functional directions, are statutorily excluded from copyright protection.”

https://copyrightalliance.org/are-recipes-cookbooks-protecte...

Re: Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company

#207

Post by pas »

sdenton4 wrote: post #151
csours wrote: post #50

Billion dollar question: do you get more bang for the buck (return on investment, ROI) out of improving robot control schemes, or out of designing the product with automated assembly in mind? Bonus: the ROI changes as you invest in either bucket.

Half of automating tomato harvesting was breeding a tomato that could survive the harvesters. (Granted they also taste relatively horrible, but now we all eat them because they are cheap and ubiquitous.)

That sounds fascinating. Do you happen to have some details, sources, videos, lectures about this?

Re: Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company

#208

Post by systemvoltage »

khazhoux wrote: post #185
okareaman wrote: post #126

I really dislike this writing structure of "before I get to the point, let me tell you a story about my life" Edit: I'm not alone, https://style.mla.org/dont-bury-the-lede/

I can understand why the style may seem offputting, but the thing to understand is that it has been traditionally very hard to engage with the public on this topic of robotic advancement. In fact, I know a bit about this myself, having been in the robotics space for over a decade. But my own struggles in the field only reflect a longer trend, which I can even trace back to my grandfather. Growing up in a strict Luthe…

Ah, it’s refreshing to see some comedy in this politically enraged atmosphere. Thanks for the laugh on a rather dim Friday for me.

Re: Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company

#210

Post by dimatura »

jliptzin wrote: post #180

How is it possible that we don’t have robots to do very basic household tasks such as fold laundry by now?

This reminds me of a Louis CK bit, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBtKNzoKZ4.

Folding laundry (and more generally, manipulating deformable objects) is actually a pretty tough task for robots. So there has been some research on it, and you can find videos of robots doing it (very slowly). I guess we'll get there eventually, but right now even if it's possible, it's not at a level of speed, robustness and cost where it makes sense.

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