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Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company

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Re: Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company

#81

Post by csours »

eloff wrote: post #63
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.

Probably both, to the extent that it's practical.

Indeed. Looking at their sample footage of assembling Ikea furniture reminds me of fixturing. Watch manufacturing footage and watch out for jigs and fixtures. They are EVERYWHERE.

Currently, you can either use fixtures and jigs and specialized machines and run fast, use humans and run medium speed, or use AI and generic robotics and run REALLY SLOWLY.

Where's the value prop?

Re: Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company

#82

Post by the_duke »

ccchapman wrote: post #61

The x.company website is unusable on Firefox. One scroll wheel movement and I am lost on a completely different part of the document. There is one way to ensure an immediate bounce.

Just block JavaScript on all Medium blogs. Simple click with Ublock Origin. Much better experience.

Re: Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company

#83

Post by extropy »

falcor84 wrote: post #77

>...the US manufacturing industry alone is expected to have 2.1 million unfilled jobs by 2030. Is the implication here that they're aiming to automate away all of these jobs?

The implication is that noone wants to work those jobs anymore and the options are to either import illegal workers being paid below minimal wage or replace by robots.

Re: Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company

#84

Post by neltnerb »

motohagiography wrote: post #60

Makes sense. The end state appears to be that humans should only be supervising ML that generates goal and outcome based behaviors for robots, and the machines will construct tools to solve problems themselves. The leap from an AI model learning how to replicate a behaviour (e.g. evolving walking to solve problems https://unitylist.com/p/2id/walking-ai ) to reasoning about it in terms of actuators and physical feedba…

https://www.mujin.co.jp/en/

This is not manual or bespoke and it has sensors. The videos are incredible and they work in real life already.

This one is it moving petri dishes full of liquid without spilling! This is obviously not being pre-programmed to move along some kind of 1980s style fixed paths for welding parts as Alphabet apparently thinks everyone is still doing. The obliviousness of suggesting that using ML models for robotic control is some unique new idea is really off-putting. Mujin has been around since 2012.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vleHnx7uug&t=136s

The more the merrier, of course, but just dismissing the state of the industry and claiming you've made a huge technology leap (compared to the 80s and 90s instead of something harder)... ugh.

Re: Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company

#85

Post by klysm »

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.

The improvement of robot control schemes reduces the constraints on designs that are designed for automated assembly. I suspect there’s a kind of slow moving coevoultion there where you have to go incrementally at both.

Re: Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company

#86

Post by amirhirsch »

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.

Re: Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company

#88

Post by jazzyjackson »

the_duke wrote: post #82
ccchapman wrote: post #61

The x.company website is unusable on Firefox. One scroll wheel movement and I am lost on a completely different part of the document. There is one way to ensure an immediate bounce.

Just block JavaScript on all Medium blogs. Simple click with Ublock Origin. Much better experience.

the x.company landing page is the one they mean, its full of scroll-captures that freak out on firefox. It scrolls smoothly in Safari.

Re: Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company

#89

Post by CleverLikeAnOx »

ccchapman wrote: post #61

The x.company website is unusable on Firefox. One scroll wheel movement and I am lost on a completely different part of the document. There is one way to ensure an immediate bounce.

Does anyone actually like these homepages that move around a bunch as you scroll? I don't see the appeal of parallax effects and the like. To my eye, they are neither pretty nor useful.

Re: Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company

#90

Post by falcor84 »

extropy wrote: post #83
falcor84 wrote: post #77

>...the US manufacturing industry alone is expected to have 2.1 million unfilled jobs by 2030. Is the implication here that they're aiming to automate away all of these jobs?

The implication is that noone wants to work those jobs anymore and the options are to either import illegal workers being paid below minimal wage or replace by robots.

>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

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