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We accidentally solved robotics by watching 1M hours of YouTube

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Re: We accidentally solved robotics by watching 1M hours of YouTube

#81

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

rozab wrote: post #52

I just wrote a reply to a comment talking about the AI tells this writing has, but it got flagged so my comment disappeared when I hit post. I'll rephrase out of spite: My first thought upon reading this was that an LLM had been instructed to add a pithy meme joke to each paragraph. They don't make sense in context, and while some terminally online people do speak in memes, those people aren't quoting doge in 2025. T…

> some terminally online people do speak in memes, those people aren't quoting doge in 2025.

You may be surprised to find out how incorrect this.

I can think of two popular conservative sites likely to quote Doge people off hand that do this. I read all news in order not be an insufferable ideologue. So again, off the top of my head, NotTheBee (I think affiliated to BabylonBee (conservative The Onion)) and Twitchy. Among YouTubers, I think Asmond Gold, and I’m sure others like Steven Crowder who himself is in a famous meme.

That said… yea, you are probably right.

Re: We accidentally solved robotics by watching 1M hours of YouTube

#83

Post by dotancohen »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #68
Aurornis wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This was a bit hard to read. This writing style is prominent on Twitter and niche Discords. It's funny how much I've come to be able to cut right through it, but if you haven't seen much of it it's really hard to parse. That's by design, too. The vibe of this writing style is to project an air of confidence so strong that the author doesn't care if you get it or not. It's a sort of humblebrag where the writing is s…

What's the point in writing something while "not caring" if the reader understands or not? Seems like a false confidence or false bravado to me; it reads like an attempt to project an impression, and not really an attempt to communicate.

This style of writing is very effective at convincing people in their impressionable years of a narrative or viewpoint, often one that is hard to defend with more traditional writing styles.

I hope I'm wrong, but this looks like an effort to normalize such writing style. As this happens, intelligent discourse and rhetoric become harder.

Re: We accidentally solved robotics by watching 1M hours of YouTube

#86

Post by tomrod »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #81
rozab wrote: post #52

I just wrote a reply to a comment talking about the AI tells this writing has, but it got flagged so my comment disappeared when I hit post. I'll rephrase out of spite: My first thought upon reading this was that an LLM had been instructed to add a pithy meme joke to each paragraph. They don't make sense in context, and while some terminally online people do speak in memes, those people aren't quoting doge in 2025. T…

> some terminally online people do speak in memes, those people aren't quoting doge in 2025. You may be surprised to find out how incorrect this. I can think of two popular conservative sites likely to quote Doge people off hand that do this. I read all news in order not be an insufferable ideologue. So again, off the top of my head, NotTheBee (I think affiliated to BabylonBee (conservative The Onion)) and Twitchy. A…

Aren't those sites primarily Russian bots tho?

Re: We accidentally solved robotics by watching 1M hours of YouTube

#87

Post by dotancohen »

contingencies wrote: post #8

This is interesting for generalized problems ( "make me a sandwich" ) but not useful for most real world functions ( "perform x within y space at z cost/speed" ). I think the number of people on the humanoid bandwagon trying to implement generalized applications is staggering right now. The physics tells you they will never be as fast as purpose-built devices, nor as small, nor as cheap. That's not to say there's zer…

The value is in the generalisation.

For a single example, in any factory watch how humans are added as ad-hoc machines wherever a problem occurs. Machine N outputting faster than machine N+1 can accept? Have a human stack, and destack, the product between them. No matter the size, shape, it within reason the weight of the product. But most importantly: the process can begin within seconds of the problem occurring. No need for a programmer, developer, or maintenance worker to get involved. Just a clear order from the shift manager.

A general purpose robot with physical interfaces similar to a human would be very valuable for such environments. If it had the software to be as easy to instruct as a human.

Re: We accidentally solved robotics by watching 1M hours of YouTube

#88

Post by namibj »

dchftcs wrote: post #78

Pure vision will never be enough because it does not contain information about the physical feedback like pressure and touch, or the strength required to perform a task. For example, so that you don't crush a human when doing massage (but still need to press hard), or apply the right amount of force (and finesse?) to skin a fish fillet without cutting the skin itself. Practically in the near term, it's hard to sample…

If the robot already knows "how to" the happy path, the training difficulty falls severely at least if it can continue after a recovery.

Re: We accidentally solved robotics by watching 1M hours of YouTube

#89

Post by namibj »

jdmichal wrote: post #69
Keyframe wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like it was trained on Shaolin Drunken Fist videos. Does it look drunk because of the videos or because there's a discrepancy between videos and it not accounting for gravity and physics in general?

My guess would be lack of actuators. For instance, this robot looks like it has an ankle that can only go up and down, but not roll like a human's. Also, I wonder if there's a center of gravity issue, as it almost always appears to be leaning backwards to even out. I think it's still pretty impressive in its recoveries, even though there's an unnaturally large number of them necessary. About 8 seconds into the video…

> So the fact that it just recovers and keeps going without issue is impressive to me.

I'm pretty sure that's just a matter of reaction speed and it maintaining a constant focus/vigilance on it's movement that you'd usually not reserve outside of some sports and situations pre-identified as deserving the attention due to danger, like concentrating on balance and not getting into a position that overstresses your joints when you know it's icy.

Re: We accidentally solved robotics by watching 1M hours of YouTube

#90

Post by Aurornis »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #68
Aurornis wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This was a bit hard to read. This writing style is prominent on Twitter and niche Discords. It's funny how much I've come to be able to cut right through it, but if you haven't seen much of it it's really hard to parse. That's by design, too. The vibe of this writing style is to project an air of confidence so strong that the author doesn't care if you get it or not. It's a sort of humblebrag where the writing is s…

What's the point in writing something while "not caring" if the reader understands or not? Seems like a false confidence or false bravado to me; it reads like an attempt to project an impression, and not really an attempt to communicate.

Basically: If you understand the topic well, you’re not the target audience.

This is a type of information arbitrage where someone samples something intellectual without fully understanding it, then writes about it for a less technical audience. Their goal is to appear to be the expert on the topic, which translates into clout, social media follows, and eventually they hope job opportunities.

The primary goal of the writing isn’t to get you to understand the topic clearly, because that would diminish the sense that the author is more knowledgeable than you. The goal is to sound guru-like while making the topic feel impenetrably complex for you, while appearing playfully casual for the author.

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