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Figure 03, our 3rd generation humanoid robot

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Re: Figure 03, our 3rd generation humanoid robot

#261

Post by gonzobonzo »

hadlock wrote: post #196
ipnon wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now the question is if this is GPT-2 and we’re a decade away from autonomous androids given some scaling and tweaks, or if autonomous androids is just an extremely hard problem.

This is where I'm at. If you look at Boston Dynamics' first videos, they're 45 second clips of 4 legged robots walking in not even a straight line, just proving they could walk 5 feet over level ground without falling over. The top comment, from 4 years ago is "This was 11 years ago. Now these things are dancing." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gi6Ohnp9x8 If you can make it look believable on camera for 15 seconds…

The robot (BigDog) in that video shows numerous capabilities that Spot still can't do (climbing over terrain like that, being able to respond to a kick like that, the part on the ice, etc.). Even 16 years later.

This only highlights the fact that making a cool prototype do a few cool things on video is far, far easier than making a commercial product that can consistently do these things reliably. It often takes decades to move from the former to the latter. And Figure hasn't even shown us particularly impressive things from its prototypes yet.

Re: Figure 03, our 3rd generation humanoid robot

#262

Post by gonzobonzo »

ItsHarper wrote: post #212
xdennis wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Boston Dynamics has been releasing actual product demos of such robots Boston Dynamics hasn't released any actual products. They seem to be focused on flashy demos of robots dancing instead of end user products. As a counterpoint, Unitree right now sells humanoids you can actually buy. They're no where near as good, but you can actually use them.

They do sell Spot, actually

True, though very few (this says "over 1,500"[1]). And from everything I've seen, Spot appears to be a very expensive solution in search of a problem.

They also have Handle, a slow moving robot on wheels with an arm for moving boxes. No idea how many have been sold, but it seems to be even less than Spot.

[1] https://bostondynamics.com/products/spot/

Re: Figure 03, our 3rd generation humanoid robot

#264

Post by xky »

blackguardx wrote: post #244
93po wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the use case here is smaller to medium size businesses that don't need a $150k suction robot arm 24/7, but do need 24/7 help with warehousing, packaging, restocking, taking inventory, sorting mailing, applying shipping labes, etc. With a single humanoid robot you can do all that for, at some point, possibly as low as $20k for a one-time robot purchase.

Why do you think a humanoid robot will be cheaper than a robot arm?

If humanoid robots can perform ok on a broader set of tasks then they could reach economies of scale that a robot arm might not.

Re: Figure 03, our 3rd generation humanoid robot

#265

Post by nick49488171 »

geraneum wrote: post #222
cooper_ganglia wrote: post #161

Crazy to me how negative the comments are here. None of this was even remotely possible less than 5 years ago. Now, we're demoing consumer-facing robotics that will soon, within a couple iterations, be able to perform most of your household tasks without issue. The frog boils quickly.

> within a couple iterations, be able to perform most of your household tasks without issue. There goes all those plumbing jobs that we, the white collar, were told we should be doing after LLMs take our jobs. edit: typo

Plumbing is one of the most high-dexterity, non-generalizing jobs I can think of.

Re: Figure 03, our 3rd generation humanoid robot

#266

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

93po wrote: post #236
aDyslecticCrow wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure that task needs a humanoid robot An industrial robot arm with air powered suction cups would do the trick... https://bostondynamics.com/products/stretch/ ... ... So the task they work best at is the task there is already cheaper better robots specialized for.

I think the use case here is smaller to medium size businesses that don't need a $150k suction robot arm 24/7, but do need 24/7 help with warehousing, packaging, restocking, taking inventory, sorting mailing, applying shipping labes, etc. With a single humanoid robot you can do all that for, at some point, possibly as low as $20k for a one-time robot purchase.

> one-time robot purchase.

With a hefty subscription to make it do anything useful.

Re: Figure 03, our 3rd generation humanoid robot

#267

Post by ACCount37 »

kibwen wrote: post #256
ACCount37 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robotics has a big training data problem. But your "we don't have the sensors" claim is absolutely laughable. It was never about the sensors. It was always about AI.

No, it doesn't matter if you have a hypergenius superintelligence if it's locked in a body with no hardware support for useful proprioception. You will not go to space today.

Lmao no. Every motor is a sensor. And the better my world model is, the less sensors I need to keep it up.

Re: Figure 03, our 3rd generation humanoid robot

#268

Post by coderenegade »

dafelst wrote: post #69
AaronAPU wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s too bad there isn’t some kind of liquid battery which you could just quickly top off at refueling stations with virtually zero downtime. Yes, like gasoline. But still batteries. Maybe some kind of bearing sized batteries which can be poured like a fluid?

You are describing a fuel cell battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell Well established and even commercialized (Toyota sells fuel cell cars today IIRC), just not as cost effective in cars from a full infrastructure perspective (fueling specifically).

I think they might mean something closer to a flow battery, where, in principle, you should just be able to replace the electrolytes in a discharged state with new electrolytes in a charged state. Current flow batteries have very low energy density, though.

I've always been partial to fuel cells, and in some ways they're ahead of the curve relative to standard batteries. For instance, solid electrolytes have been a thing for a while in fuel cells, and in both flavors of exchange. The challenge has always been overcoming sluggish kinetics with either better catalysts, or heat. It makes me wonder if there's a useful solid state battery that runs hotter than typical batteries, that would be useful for hybrid automotive applications.

Re: Figure 03, our 3rd generation humanoid robot

#269

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

dust42 wrote: post #223
Razengan wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But then I think lots of this can be solved in software and having seen how LLMs have advanced in the last few years, I'd not be surprised to see these robots useful in 5 years. Would asking the robot for a seahorse emoji leave you in a puddle of blood?

Thinking about it, I am sure it is only a matter of time until a self driving car or a robot will be used to kill a human. Or on a lower level for a DDoS attack - all cars/robots going to the white house.

> self driving car or a robot will be used to kill a human

They already have. We just don't hold the perpetrators accountable.

Re: Figure 03, our 3rd generation humanoid robot

#270

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

WanderPanda wrote: post #194
HAL3000 wrote: post #78

All of the examples in videos are cherry picked. Go ask anyone working on humanoid robots today, almost everything you see here, if repeated 10 times, will enter failure mode because the happy path is so narrow. There should really be benchmarks where you invite robots from different companies, ask them beforehand about their capabilities, and then create an environment that is within those capabilities but was not u…

I think this is the frontier when it comes to "unstructured": https://youtu.be/nmEy1_75qHk They for sure did not anticipate that the user would backflip into their robot and knock it (and himself) out :D

I didn't know Ruby Rhod's great grandfather was already alive.
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