How Google built its Gemini robotics models • Hacker News Board

Re: How Google built its Gemini robotics models

#31

Post by sdenton4 » Wed, Apr 02, 2025, 8:54 PM UTC

anon84873628 wrote: post #15

LeoPanthera wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asimov's laws of robotics would not, and cannot, work in real life because terms like "harm," "human being," and "inaction" are highly subjective and context-dependent. There are entire novels about how the interaction between the hierarchical laws have unexpected outcomes. They're a narrative device. Not practical instructions.

Put another way, impossible to program if you wanted to. These are highly abstract concepts that only manifest at the highest level of cognition. The governance module would need to be programmed at that same level using those tokens, but that doesn't seem to be how things are shaping up to work. Instead we start with low level programming that learns and builds up concepts on top. Essentially you would need some sor…

Some kind of governor module to keep our security cyborgs in line...

Re: How Google built its Gemini robotics models

#32

Post by exe34 » Wed, Apr 02, 2025, 9:00 PM UTC

dachworker wrote: post #2

The "how" is completely missing, but if they can get this to work semi reliably it will be ChatGPT x100 in terms of impact.

it's a common trope in blogs - "how we did X" means "we did X, it's a good thing, we're great people", etc.

Re: How Google built its Gemini robotics models

#33

Post by harmmonica » Wed, Apr 02, 2025, 9:03 PM UTC

zeroq wrote: post #19

harmmonica wrote: post #13

Even if Google's robotics technology (software and hardware) is leading edge does anyone think they'll actually be able to productize it? Seems similar to how they were the pre-product leaders in transformers and then fumbled any advantage they had to ChatGPT. It seems like something's missing from Google where they can't get from research to product effectively. Waymo perhaps a good counterexample if you think where…

In my bubble it's general consensus that Google - as we knew it - is done. Sergiej and Larry phased out and what is left is more of less a headless chicken, too big too fall, but without any clear direction and goal.

Is this actually true about Larry and Sergei? A substantial amount of their net worths is still tied up in Google stock. I realize not all centibillionaires are cut from the same cloth, but still find it hard to believe they wouldn't be majorly involved since the downside of a major stock drop would impact them disproportionately. That said they could be the types of billionaires who actually think they have enough even if their net worths were "only" in the tens of billions (a long ways to go down from where they are today).

As for headless chicken, I feel similarly, but then I sort of see a path where they have defensible businesses in YouTube and maybe GCP, and then Waymo and robotics as green field upside, so that even if they don't end up with material market share with the "software-only" side of AI, and search gets further and further eroded, they could still be a formidable player.

Ultimately I do think their best days are behind them largely because they can't seem to turn the work of their talented engineers into great new products.

Re: How Google built its Gemini robotics models

#34

Post by lugu » Wed, Apr 02, 2025, 9:05 PM UTC

LeoPanthera wrote: post #5

cozyman wrote: post #3

just curious, what would it do if you asked it to kill someone? does it follow the laws of robotics?

Asimov's laws of robotics would not, and cannot, work in real life because terms like "harm," "human being," and "inaction" are highly subjective and context-dependent. There are entire novels about how the interaction between the hierarchical laws have unexpected outcomes. They're a narrative device. Not practical instructions.

Judgement is needed but don't we have machines able to make (imperfect) judgements? I can chat with your favorite LLM their opinion on how to respect the spirit of the 3 laws on various situations. Not sure why it cannot work.

Re: How Google built its Gemini robotics models

#35

Post by financltravsty » Wed, Apr 02, 2025, 9:13 PM UTC

cma wrote: post #30

MPSFounder wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A school being tough to get into due to an abundance of population (too many applicants) means little. There has been not one significant person coming out of those institutions (compared to the many figures coming out of the US, despite a population 5x smaller). I would not hire Sundar as a junior engineer in my team. Of course, you might see something in Google's current leadership which I do not see. Time will tel…

> There has been not one significant person coming out of those institutions Of the IITs? Co-founders of Sun Microsystems, Flipkart, Ola Cabs, Infosys, Zoho, HCL

The only one significant is Khosla of Sun. The rest are... rehashes of Western companies without a shred of innovation or doing anything novel.

Re: How Google built its Gemini robotics models

#36

Post by droopyEyelids » Wed, Apr 02, 2025, 9:31 PM UTC

_the_inflator wrote: post #23

lima wrote: post #21

They can do that , yet somehow, Gemini Assistant on Pixel phones still fails to reliably set timers or add shopping list items :-) (which worked fine with Google Assistant)

Bring up dates and times if you want to wreak havoc on any AI. :D Developers around the world's most beloved topic, how to handle date and time correctly, is still a topic of great misunderstanding. AI and AI agents are no different from that. LLM seems to help a little, but only if you know what you are doing, as it usually needs to be the case. Some things won't change so fast; at one point or another, data must ma…

One would think the arcana of time zones and the occasional leap second would not interfere with an individual setting egg timers often enough to become a burden

Re: How Google built its Gemini robotics models

#37

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 02, 2025, 9:44 PM UTC

Balmbli wrote: post #10

WXLCKNO wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had never heard of Unitree (Chinese robotics company) before today. A lot of their videos look like CGI but apparently the product is real. What stuck with me the most browsing their website on the G1 model was seeing "Price from $16k" Now I'm not sure if these are actually purchasable or what the value would be, but it's my first time seeing an actual normal-ish price attached to a humanoid robot that seems to be…

I'm really shocked tbh. I can't imagine the progression of ai and in particular robots but I assumed that the first robot would cost min 6 figures if not 7 but would still be worth it due to 24*7 and initial invest vs long term. But the fact how good Gemini robotics is already and how cheap the first models are I do believe what will hinder us more than tech is people learning about it, testing it out and doing it bu…

[deleted]

Re: How Google built its Gemini robotics models

#38

Post by otherayden » Wed, Apr 02, 2025, 9:47 PM UTC

It's terrifying to think that robots like this will probably be used in the defense industry at some point. If the robot understands something as general as "put the erasers away", imagine "kill all enemies".

Re: How Google built its Gemini robotics models

#39

Post by free652 » Wed, Apr 02, 2025, 9:52 PM UTC

April 1st!

Re: How Google built its Gemini robotics models

#40

Post by umeshunni » Wed, Apr 02, 2025, 10:06 PM UTC

otherayden wrote: post #38

It's terrifying to think that robots like this will probably be used in the defense industry at some point. If the robot understands something as general as "put the erasers away", imagine "kill all enemies".

Whenever I watch videos of robot dogs climbing all terrains (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS1n99yruVU), I'm convinced that half of these robotics companies are defense funded, whether in the US or China.