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Part 1 : CMU ’s Matthew Johnson - RobersonPart 2 : Toyota Research Institute ’s Max Bajracharya and Russ TedrakePart 3 : Meta ’s Dhruv BatraPart 4 : Boston Dynamics ’ Aaron Saunders
Ken Goldberg is a prof and the William S. Floyd Jr. Distinguished Chair in Engineering at UC Berkeley , a carbon monoxide - founder and chief scientist at robotics parcel sorting startupAmbidextrous and a fellow at IEEE .
What role(s ) will generative AI play in the future of robotics ?
Although the rumblings go a morsel in the beginning , 2023 will be remembered as the class when generative AI transform Robotics . bombastic linguistic process models like ChatGPT can allow robots and humans to communicate in born speech . news acquire over time to represent useful concepts from “ chairman ” to “ chocolate ” to “ charisma . ” Roboticists also discovered that large Vision - Language - Actionmodels can be train to facilitate automaton perception and to control the motility of robot arms and legs . breeding call for vast amounts of data so labs around the world are now collaborating to share datum . Results are pouring in and although there are still open question about abstraction , the shock will be profound .
Another exciting topic is “ Multi - Modal theoretical account ” in two senses of multi - modal :
What are your thoughts on the humanoid form factor ?
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I ’ve always been skeptical about android and legged robots , as they can be overly sensory and inefficient , but I ’m reconsidering after seeing the latest humanoids and quadrupeds from Boston Dynamics , Agility and Unitree . Tesla has the engineering skills to grow lowly - cost motor and gearing systems at scale . Legged robot have many advantages over wheel in homes and factories to traverse steps , debris and rug . two-handed ( two - armed ) automaton are all important for many tasks , but I still believe that simple-minded grippers will continue to be more reliable and toll - effective than five - fingered robot hand .
After the late union wage settlement , I conceive we ’ll see many more robots in fabrication and warehouse than we have today . late onward motion in self - motor taxis has been impressive , specially in San Francisco where drive conditions are more complex than Phoenix . But I ’m not convert that they can be cost - good . For robot - attend to surgical procedure , researchers are exploring “ Augmented Dexterity ” — where robots can enhance surgical skills by performing miserable - level subtasks such as suturing .
How far out are true general - purpose golem ?
I do n’t have a bun in the oven to see true AGI and general - function robots in the near futurity . Not a individual roboticist I know worries about robot steal jobs or becoming our overlords .
Will house robots ( beyond vacancy ) take off in the next X ?
I predict that within the next decade we will have low-cost home golem that can declutter — plunk up things like clothes , toys and ice from the floor and localise them into appropriate bins . Like today ’s vacuum dry cleaners , these automaton will occasionally make mistakes , but the benefits for parent and senior citizen will outweigh the risks .
What important robotics story / vogue is n’t getting enough coverage ?
Robot motion provision . This is one of the older subjects in robotics — how to insure the motor articulation to move the robot shaft and avoid obstacles . Many opine this trouble has been resolve , but it has n’t .
Robot “ singularities ” are a fundamental problem for all robot arms ; they are very different from Kurzweil ’s hypothetical point in sentence when AI outgo man . golem uniqueness are point in space where a robot stops unexpectedly and must be manually readjust by a human manipulator . uniqueness spring up from the math needed to convert desired square - seam motion of the gripper into the corresponding motions for each of the six golem joint motors . At sure points in outer space , this transition becomes fluid ( like to a divide - by - zero error ) , and the automaton needs to be reset .
For repetitive golem motions , singularity can be avoided by tedious manual fine - tuning of repetitive automaton movement to adjust them such that they never encounter singularities . Once such motions are determine , they are repeated over and over again . But for the growing propagation of applications where automaton motions are not insistent , admit palletizing , ABA transit number - picking , order fulfillment and package sorting , singularities are common . They are a well - bed and fundamental job as they cut off robot operations at irregular times ( often several times per hour).I co - institute a new startup , Jacobi Robotics , thatimplements effective algorithms that are * guaranteed * to avoid singularity . This can importantly increase reliableness and productivity for all robots .
