Why don't we have better robots yet?

I’ve tried to understand why so many humans are worried that AI will end humanity. Then I’ve noticed that a lot these fears aren’t about AI, they’re about robots. But where are the robots? In this episode I look into why, despite impressive looking examples like Atlas from Boston Dynamics and Optimus from Tesla, we don't yet all have a robot at home.

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#science #sciencenews #robots #artificialintelligence #tech #technews

[philiphumphrey]

"Robot, will you wash the dishes?" "I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that."

[primordialblob]

I'm a robotics researcher and I think something that's missing in this video is that the sensing problem, that is: simply getting information about the world, is enormous and current sensing technology is far short of what is needed to truly operate in the real world. The sheer amount of data that animals are able to take in, process, and synthesize is enormous and (in my opinion) this ability to draw from many different sources of information to build a model of the self and the world is what would enable the next breakthrough in the field.

I also want to push back on the assertion that we don't already have robots everywhere. I would argue that everything from self-driving cars to automated factories and even elevators fit the description of "a physical device operating independently based on sensory input." To me, that's a robot.

[Techmagus]

Well the misconception is probably that robots are often seen as humanoid robots, but once you take a step back from that then each modern car is a robot etc.

[alexandergonzalez]

"Why is it not everyone agrees with me?"

Me too Sabine, me too.

[meandego]

I want a robot that answers all my colleagues' questions only in passive-aggressive tone.

[x]

When your legs fall asleep you realize how much any movement relies on feedback

[GEOFERET]

Definately expand on this. I have watched hundreds of videos concerning AI and Robots, and it is the first time I understood a few of the obstacles we are facing. You have a way of focusing on the issues that are really fundamental. Thank you very much!

[rreiter]

"Honey, the helper's legs are squeaking again, we need to schedule an oiling." "Honey the helper is frozen in the living room, did you pay the subscription?"

[barisibis]

Elevators will eventually be sentient and conscious, questioning the meaning of life after an existential crisis

[mike]

On the question of consciousness, I find that the most interesting hypothesis that biologists have been observing and trying to more thoroughly confirm is the so-called "theory of mind". The observation in animal species is that the more socially complex their life is the more they seem to exhibit consciousness. The hypothesis is that in order to function at a high level of social complexity, there is a need for creating a complex mental model of every other individual within the social group, to understand what they might be thinking or how they might be feeling at any moment or as a result of any future actions, and once that model exists and the capacity to integrate observations of others into that model develops, almost as an accidental by-product, an individual can also cast themselves into that model, and thus, become self-conscious. And also, consciousness, and especially self-consciousness, plays a vital role in social relations (whether we like it or not). If this is true, one should not expect AI to develop or need to have any consciousness until it has to navigate social dynamics among beings like itself (other AI agents or humans, if the AI is itself close enough to being human, and not just in terms of intelligence, but in all respects).

[bepu]

Safety Robot Engineer here.
I am certifying and testing industrial robots for years now. There are existing safety standards to make robots safe. ISO 12100, ISO 13849-1, ISO 13482, ISO 10218-1/2 etc. The important part is, that AI is considered and evaluated during the development of the safety concept. Also with the new machinery regulation, safety critical AI has to be approved by notified bodies. So at the moment there is no risk that robots will come for us :)

[HHercock]

Thanks Sabine for pointing this out. It is a topic that is taxing my mind as i write a novel about a Synthetic Consciousness.
One way to train an SC to use a robotic body would be to implant sensors in a human and record maps how a human navigates and exploits the real world in real time. At the same time a SC could create a comprehensive map of language use.
Maps themselves are interesting artefacts. They can be characterised as massive multidomain data sets.
Massive is the biggest problem in this description because it implies large storage and computational spaces and illuminates the bandwidth problem of a truely independent Robotic Sythetic Consciousness

[KaiseruSoze]

I used chatGPT to write an app for Android. "We" did it in two days. It was an app that would sent a text message with a link to google maps with my GPS coordinates every 15 mins or more, to a phone in my contacts list. It had a UI that let you turn it on or off and select a contact and display it in a list of n other contacts. And you could detete them. If you changed your "designated receiver" it would restart it's broadcast schedule. The schedule ran in background and while the phone is locked in sleep to conserve battery life.

I have written Android apps before, but I have never fooled around with GPS or programatic texting, background task monitoring or battery mgt. It responded to my requests at lightning speed, never got impatient. But sometimes it would generate ummm "naive" responses. But I found if I re-worded my prompts we'd get through a problem.

I have also used chatGPT to generate C++ templates with nested classes. Not an easy thing to do. And the the experience was similar. I had to be patient and repeat myself in different ways. But it eventually got it.

I've had discussions with it about abstract subjects related to morality and it is clear it is a liberal. And it really doesn't understand "abstractions" in the way we do. But as an information source I find it to be much better at explanations than humans. And when looking for answers, it is WAY better than any search engine.

[trinketmage]

Okay, but here's thing though. Yes, it took them and hyuge amount of effort to teach one robot one task, but now that it knows it every robot knows it. Plus the skills it's acquired might transfer over to other tasks. The monumental start up costs still scale exponentially when compared to human workers that always need to be trained from scratch.

[Thomas-gk]

Hi, two points here: First, I´m sure you are totally right, that consciousness needs physically and sensorically confrontation with an environment. So LLMs won´t get it regardless of their intelligence, and the sensoric system of robotic is still a bit primitive in comparison to biological organisms, so it might take some time for the first conscious robot too.
Second, I would like to add a third issue here, that´s energy supply. Since the muscles of robots are electric engines they need batteries (both quite heavy), and since your bunch of videos about that topic shows, they are heavy and have low energy density. Even a simple mowing robot needs to charge constantly, so I think that limits the outlook on a super-mighty "terminator"- robot or a super-helpfull houshold-robot soon. The suit of "iron-man" is supplied by a kind of micro fusion reactor, no?

[caryeverett]

I have a household robot vacuum, far simpler than a general robot. And it works pretty great... Except for all the things it just can't make sense of. Like my house has a "circle" in it; the kitchen, dining room, hall, living room, all connect in a big circle, and the AI in the robot just has a mental meltdown. It just can't comprehend that these are 4 separate rooms separated by doors, and then gets lost whenever it encounters a "wall" which is actually a door that it can't understand why it's there, because it's convinced it's all a single room.

And nothing I've been able to do manages to convince it that it's 4 rooms. I used to try and fiddle with it's map in the software to try and force it to understand that there are 4 rooms separated by doors, and I can do that, and the robot stops getting lost... For about a week until it decides it's human overlord is clearly mistaken and this has been one room all along, and then proceeds to edit it's own map back to the dysfunctional state.

But what about navigation around furniture? Is it good at that? It's actually fantastic at navigating around furniture... once I modified or replaced all the furniture in the house to be robot friendly.

Was that worth doing? Hell yeah, screw vacuuming every day, best household improvement since Central Air Conditioning.
Is my robot vacuum going to be taking over the world anytime soon? lol, I have to babysit this thing so much.

[joaobarros]

I mean, sure, not those kinds of robots, but hook an AI in a drone with machine guns and RPGs and we're dead. Oh wait...

[gijbuis]

Videos about the public interest in (and fear of) humanoid robots always seem to avoid the fact that genuine all-purpose humanoid robots would need a lot of battery power. They could never function for any length of time without having to take a time-out to recharge.

[MightyRude]

Last week I heard about a company that’s building the first serial robot production line, making robot assistants actually available for the common people.

[johnmannymoo]

Drones don't need to understand cupboards to 'unalive' people.