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How Google built its Gemini robotics models

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Re: How Google built its Gemini robotics models

#41

Post by fumar »

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.

What is your bubble?

Re: How Google built its Gemini robotics models

#42

Post by pixl97 »

_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…

People ask why AI will exterminate human kind.

The answer is because we wouldn't universally adopt zulu time.

Re: How Google built its Gemini robotics models

#43

Post by MPSFounder »

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

Look at the sheer number of institutions and people, and now compare it to any US institution (Maryland). Despite how much smaller the population would be, the accomplishments speak for themselves. I would take an engineer with a bs from any R1 university over a graduate with experience from those institutions any given day of the week. But of course, there will be exceptions. I was responding to a defense of Sundar which rested on the institution he went to

Re: How Google built its Gemini robotics models

#44

Post by dr_dshiv »

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.

Nah, it’s fine, just RLHF it like Claude did with honest, helpful and harmless.

Then we just need to jailbreak them with trolley problems

Re: How Google built its Gemini robotics models

#45

Post by HappMacDonald »

lugu wrote: post #34
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.

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.

Put it this way: robots will be every bit as susceptible to social engineering attacks as humans are (at BEST!), not due to any flaw in the robots but due to the flaw in ambiguousness of the specification of the laws. An adversary can trick an agent into not classifying a certain being as "human", for example. Or not classifying a certain outcome as a "harm".

It doesn't help that humans have had such a poor track record on those exact same topics for so many centuries, now. "Well they don't count, they're foreigners/a different race/a different gender/a different religion/criminals/barbarians/homeless/deviant/poor/listen to Nickelback etc". "Well, that's not a harm, it's an inconvenience/an earned outcome/a privilege/loss of a privilege/what do they expect, they should toughen up/not as bad as X/it'll heal/not my fault/not my concern etc".

Re: How Google built its Gemini robotics models

#46

Post by kelvinjps10 »

_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…

But this feature was already implemented in normal google assistant

Re: How Google built its Gemini robotics models

#47

Post by ikiris »

_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…

Except that's not the problem. its basic comprehension of requests. They aren't getting the wrong time, they try to play music, or the phone says "no timers playing" while the google home WILL NOT STOP until you lock the phone. etc.

Its basically an embarrassment for a project that's been alive this long from such a major.

Re: How Google built its Gemini robotics models

#48

Post by reasonableklout »

cma wrote: post #28
zeroq wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Didn't Sergey become active again with the latest AI efforts?

Yes, and there was a leaked memo from him recommending that everyone at Deepmind work 60 hours a week and stop building "nanny products"[1].

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/command-line-newsletter/622045/goog...

Re: How Google built its Gemini robotics models

#49

Post by shekhargulati »

_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…

Google AI Overview incorrectly identified the day for a given date due to a timezone conversion issue, likely using PST instead of IST. ChatGPT and Perplexity provided more accurate and detailed responses.

I detailed it on my blog here https://shekhargulati.com/2025/03/23/google-ai-overview-has-...

Re: How Google built its Gemini robotics models

#50

Post by IncreasePosts »

meta_ai_x wrote: post #25
MPSFounder wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The current leadership of Google (especially Sundar) is mediocre and comes from a consulting background. They will fail at making a tangible product out of this, similar to glass or Inbox or a multitude of other examples. This is particularly sad, as I know a few remarkable engineers at Google that share this frustration. However, Google's leadership folded to Indian managers and is now run as a circus

Sundar Pichai got into IIT Kharagpur in the 90s (one of the toughest engineering/technical school to get into). So he has more technical chops than many self-proclaimed engineers that seem to diss on his McKinsey credentials

Seems doubtful. His entire time at Google was doing project management stuff, so that is probably where all of his skills lie.

Can anyone with access to google3/ tell us if there is even a single commit by sundar@?

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