9 ms·

I invented Roomba and assure you, robots won’t take over the world

78 points by dnetesn 7y ago

2rsf 7y ago
Why do some things get "invented" and others being simply developed ? Roombe is based on other ideas and concpets. Even according to the timeline in the article itself the Swedish Electrolux Trilobite [1] was already press released when iRobot had their first proof of concept. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolux_Trilobite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolux_Trilobite
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
_sbrk 7y ago
I'm not worried about a grad-school project picking up a gun and using it against me. I am worried about something like this, which, while a parody, is not long off: https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/robots/a29610393/robot-soldier-boston-dynamics/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/robots/a29610393...
- hiidrew 7y ago
  Something like this terrifies me- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM Tl;dw, mini weaponized AI drones get loose and mass havoc ensues. I'm sure the feasibility behind these isn't close but still, it's an interesting design fiction.
  - _sbrk 7y ago
    shiver Very well done short film. A chilling vision of the (possibly near) future.
gwern 7y ago
If I want to know what robotics will look like and the future of deep reinforcement learning, I'd rather ask Covariant.ai than a guy whose expertise is little vacuums whose AI is "while true, spin in a circle and go forward at random".
- a_t48 7y ago
  Current Roombas are a little more fancy than that.
  - gwern 7y ago
    But not much. You can hardly compare anything Roomba has ever done to even, say, Boston Dynamics.
    - Digit-Al 7y ago
      The difference is that Roomba's are used by millions of people around the world whilst Boston Dynamics robots, whilst impressive, are currently used by... nobody? Anyway, it's an apples to oranges comparison. Boston Dynamics are building incredibly expensive and sophisticated AI systems that will be first of interest to the military, who have very deep pockets and can afford to spend millions if it is deemed a good use of the money. Roomba are building stuff that can be bought by the average person on the street.
- magusdei 7y ago
  Yeesh, gwern. Usually I enjoy your comments, but this one seems a bit unfair. Of course if you want to know the long-term future of robotics, you should look to sci-fi authors and research prototypes. But if you want to know the short-term future (<10 years), you should listen to people with actual experience building actual products, even if you don't see those products as impressive from a research perspective. I think the article provides an illustrative example of the different factors and complications that make it so difficult to go from a research prototype to an actual consumer product (a process which seems to take about 20 years on average). As usual, the lackadaisical improvement of battery technology is one of the central bottlenecks. Of course, if your main interest is industrial robotics, where DRL approaches are more likely to become mainstream in the near-term, insights related to consumer products might not be as relevant. But note that industrial improvements, while important, will be mostly invisible to consumers except in terms of prices, unemployment and increased customization options for products. Even then, the article can provide some perspective. Our processes (whether assembly lines or household vacuuming) are already highly optimized for a particular way of doing things, and researchers in particular tend to underestimate the amount of effort it takes to change systems to accommodate a slightly different method. So any new system not only has to be competitive with the existing one in just about every parameter, it has to justify the often huge costs of small alterations to the process. Thus, even in industry, getting to mainstream adoption of RL will likely take quite a while.
manishsharan 7y ago
There are a lot of jobs that are suitable for people with disabilities or lack of college education or other issues -- those jobs jobs are being taken over by "software robots". My employer and lots of other similar companies are using them to automate stuff so that those people are no longer needed. Robots are not taking over your world -- just some jobs which mean the world to some people who have those jobs!
thinkloop 7y ago
It doesn't answer the title? Why won't they take over? I thought he was going to discuss the exponential difficulty of AI as it approaches human parity.
meesles 7y ago
There is no point made here that robots won't take over the world, he just belabors the point that it is hard to make robots replicate exactly what humans do. Automation will eat everything, it's just a matter of time. Even his problem of 'visually identifying weeds and uprooting them' does not come across as a massive problem, but one that can probably be solved with enough time and demand. Platitudes like these give false hopes to workers who should be training and preparing for the next phase of industry, and IMO serves people like the author who need complacent workers to give them time to come up with their money-making solutions.
- ianbicking 7y ago
  I think this underestimates the incredible engineering of the human body. It runs at 100W, while retaining the ability to execute both very high torque actions and fine motor actions, with self-healing grip, and an ability to engage increasing numbers of muscles and the weight of the machine itself to accomplish tasks. One thing I didn't quite realized needed teaching until I taught my daughter: how do you tell when a screw is going in right? It might have resistance because of gunk or rust, or it might be misaligned. Determining the right action is incredibly sophisticated, the difference between the slight easing of resistance with old oil or the springiness when the threads are pushing against each other and deforming. In response you might draw out and try again, or push harder, all while still trying to feel out what's really happening. Automation is great for screws in factories. We don't have anything on the horizon that has the physical flexibility and power of a human. To the degree we can reconfigure problems to match a robot's capabilities, then yes, automation may be inevitable. A lot of problems aren't like that.
  - blacksmith_tb 7y ago
    Along these lines, I still think Marshall Brain is likely to be proved correct, he predicted automation would instead replace middle management, and then direct unskilled labor in his novel Manna[1]. 1:http://marshallbrain.com/manna.htm http://marshallbrain.com/manna.htm
    - 7y ago
petra 7y ago
So OK, it's a good criteria for robotics companies: Do a valuable task, do it today, do it for less. And companies following that, and i'll add - aiming for B2B, even when failed, we'll see their competitors and industry succeed. You can see it from his list of failed companies, where only Unbounded robotics(smart robot hand), Rethink(collaborative robotics), Blue workforce(collaborative), Aria insights(drones) have seen their work continue successfully in their industry. But yes, robots for the home are much harder. So maybe robots won't take over the world, but they might take over businesses.
- ianbicking 7y ago
  I think it's a bit easier for businesses to reconfigure to change the essential job and make it easier for robots. E.g., a business can put guide wires in the concrete. I can do the same in my yard... but I'm not going to do it in my house. Perhaps this is because the business is already slave to its function. The exact separation and makeup of businesses reflects efficient ways to split up problems and integrate with other businesses. It's possible to refactor that given a robot that can perform a certain kind of action that is not directly equivalent to one person's job right now. But my home is my home, it serves me, I do not serve it. For instance, one could imagine redesigning clothing to make robotic cleaning and folding of clothing feasible. I'm not going to do that! But redesigning PPE for that process in a hospital is not at all unreasonable.
credit_guy 7y ago
Before spreadsheet software (Excel, etc) showed up, some people were using actual physical spreadsheets (very large pieces of paper). Spreadsheet software appeared to make that job obsolete. And indeed it did. Nobody uses the paper spreadsheets anymore. But how many people use the computer spreadsheets? Hundreds of millions? It's going to be the same with robots. Maybe actual lathes will disappear, but there will be computerized things that will perform that job, and people manning the computers. Some of the jobs will be automated (think Excel macros), but many will require human interaction and iterations.
JoeAltmaier 7y ago
Roomba is a very old concept, missing almost everything that makes modern robots interesting. No vision; not much memory; no model of the environment; no knowledge of physics. Just a tuned mechanism and simple algorithm to wander around an barely pick up some dirt. Don't get me wrong; its terribly useful. I own a knockoff. But not a model of what robots could be, today. Think of facial-recognition drones delivering voice messages to people in a crowd. Think auto-drive cars and the terabytes of data and kilowatts of energy they command. Think of the Netflix algorithm for suggesting movies. Lightyears beyond Roomba. Yes, automation will eat our lunch. Because automation is eating our lunch. Factories, city planning, scheduling, diagnosing - all sorts of automated processes are in industry and consumer space right now. Just ask Siri about it if you still have doubts.
- simplyaccont 7y ago
  Actually Roombas for a while already have vision and model/map their environment.
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    Ok. But they have tiny little processors (5?) that each do a tiny little task with a smidgen of RAM. Is the 'vision' feature real, or just a light intensity detector? Can you get a picture out of it? I'm dubious. As for the model/map, how does it sense location? Dead reckoning? Not a very significant feature if it can't find itself on the map, nor use the map to choose a route. Which I doubt (from videos of the Roomba in action)
    - qchris 7y ago
      It depends on the model, but I think that your impression of Roomba, either through experience or the technology that the author of this article presented is really out-of-date. Even on past models, they have Visual Simultaneous Location and Mapping (VSLAM) tech that is far, far beyond dead reckoning. The even more recent version (not sure if there's been a release since) also has persistent maps, so it actually can find itself on the map and choose routes[2]. I'm not sure what exactly the processors are, but considering the supply-chain investments that've gone into mobile processor development for smartphones, I think it's likely unfair to characterize them as "tiny little processors". Disclosure: I did an internship at iRobot a few years ago, although the overwhelming majority of my work wasn't related to Roomba products. [1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/irobot-brings-visual-mapping-and-navigation-to-the-roomba-980 https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/iro... [2] https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/new-roomba-i7-features-persistent-maps-room-cleaning https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/new...
michaelbuckbee 7y ago
I've been trying to make Buckbee's Law happen for a while: "The more a robot looks like a robot the less useful it is." Take fast food as an example: what's really going to change things are automated systems that reduce the number of people needed to run the place. Look at things like touchscreen ordering systems that cut the number of people talking to you. That's not a "robot" but it is automation of a sort.
- mechagodzilla 7y ago
  These aren't really much of an improvement in efficiency though - self-checkout kiosks for stores have been around since at least the early 2000s, and they're still much slower than minimum-wage cashiers with a little experience (maybe Amazon will finally change this, but the tech my local grocery has is definitely as bad as the kiosk I worked alongside in 2003). It takes me much longer to order using a kiosk at a McDonald's than it takes me to tell a cashier what I want. I remember using a touch-screen kiosk at a Subway back in 2005, and my local subway 15 years later still doesn't have them. This ultra rise in productivity just isn't actually happening despite what conversations on hacker news (and before that, digg, and before that, slashdot) keep insisting on.
  - pixl97 7y ago
    The kiosk isn't the productivity increase. The app I order 10 minutes before I get there and the foods already finished is.
  - kalleboo 7y ago
    There are other types of efficiency than time. At my supermarket, they replaced 2 regular checkouts with 8 self-checkouts in the same floor space. During rush hour, this greatly increases throughput despite actual scanning time perhaps being slower. At McDonalds, it means they can higher fewer staff which means a cost efficiency.
magwa101 7y ago
Oh no, they won't?? What got DJT in office???
khant2021 7y ago
Yes you are right they even can't do this
efdwefwfwerf 7y ago
I don't think anybody with a serious knowledge of AI, motion planning, computational geometry, real-time sensors (ex. military) or much of anything else things Roomba confers distinction. So why do I care about what this guy things about robots? That's right. I don't.
- JabavuAdams 7y ago
  Because designing a reliable product that's used by millions is so easy compared to duct-taping some research contraption together and cherry-picking to get your PhD. What's with all the disrespect. I think people are reacting to the link-bait title, and not what was actually written. It's 2020. Realize that the title will be exaggerated and that responding to that is just a straw-man argument.
  - 7532yahoogmail 7y ago
    Oh c'mon ... Roomba is a PCA with a motor and basic sensors and what not. See comments above: nobody thinks Roomba confers distinction on the hardware or software side. So now what? We're gonna skip 10 magnitudes of 10 from simple to talking about "I Robot" material? No. It's used by millions of people for good old fashioned manufacturing reasons, and because it's cheap That's it
strooper 7y ago
When someone talks about robots destroying the mankind, I start picturing scenes from movies or tv series (i.e. Terminator, iRobot, Westworld so on) where human like robots try to destroy the mankind. Robots taking over the world may not be eminent. However, greedy people taking over the world with the help of robots and AI is already being facilitated for quite some time. Governments acquiring technology to hush the oppositions and free speech around the world is a common phenomena around the world. Usage of data along with AI to pinpoint, target and destroy enemies is being used for over a decade. It is the usage of data and AI by the greedy community we need to be more concerned about, not silly imitation of life that barely perceives the world.
sn41 7y ago
That definitely clears up a long-standing doubt caused by a lesson in computational geometry - how does Roomba know when it is done cleaning a room? It seems that the simple answer is that it doesn't.

78 points by dnetesn 7y ago

2rsf 7y ago

Why do some things get "invented" and others being simply developed ? Roombe is based on other ideas and concpets. Even according to the timeline in the article itself the Swedish Electrolux Trilobite [1] was already press released when iRobot had their first proof of concept. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolux_Trilobite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolux_Trilobite

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

_sbrk 7y ago

I'm not worried about a grad-school project picking up a gun and using it against me. I am worried about something like this, which, while a parody, is not long off: https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/robots/a29610393/robot-soldier-boston-dynamics/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/robots/a29610393...

hiidrew 7y ago
Something like this terrifies me- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM Tl;dw, mini weaponized AI drones get loose and mass havoc ensues. I'm sure the feasibility behind these isn't close but still, it's an interesting design fiction.
- _sbrk 7y ago
  shiver Very well done short film. A chilling vision of the (possibly near) future.

gwern 7y ago

If I want to know what robotics will look like and the future of deep reinforcement learning, I'd rather ask Covariant.ai than a guy whose expertise is little vacuums whose AI is "while true, spin in a circle and go forward at random".

a_t48 7y ago
Current Roombas are a little more fancy than that.
- gwern 7y ago
  But not much. You can hardly compare anything Roomba has ever done to even, say, Boston Dynamics.
  - Digit-Al 7y ago
    The difference is that Roomba's are used by millions of people around the world whilst Boston Dynamics robots, whilst impressive, are currently used by... nobody? Anyway, it's an apples to oranges comparison. Boston Dynamics are building incredibly expensive and sophisticated AI systems that will be first of interest to the military, who have very deep pockets and can afford to spend millions if it is deemed a good use of the money. Roomba are building stuff that can be bought by the average person on the street.
magusdei 7y ago
Yeesh, gwern. Usually I enjoy your comments, but this one seems a bit unfair. Of course if you want to know the long-term future of robotics, you should look to sci-fi authors and research prototypes. But if you want to know the short-term future (<10 years), you should listen to people with actual experience building actual products, even if you don't see those products as impressive from a research perspective. I think the article provides an illustrative example of the different factors and complications that make it so difficult to go from a research prototype to an actual consumer product (a process which seems to take about 20 years on average). As usual, the lackadaisical improvement of battery technology is one of the central bottlenecks. Of course, if your main interest is industrial robotics, where DRL approaches are more likely to become mainstream in the near-term, insights related to consumer products might not be as relevant. But note that industrial improvements, while important, will be mostly invisible to consumers except in terms of prices, unemployment and increased customization options for products. Even then, the article can provide some perspective. Our processes (whether assembly lines or household vacuuming) are already highly optimized for a particular way of doing things, and researchers in particular tend to underestimate the amount of effort it takes to change systems to accommodate a slightly different method. So any new system not only has to be competitive with the existing one in just about every parameter, it has to justify the often huge costs of small alterations to the process. Thus, even in industry, getting to mainstream adoption of RL will likely take quite a while.

manishsharan 7y ago

There are a lot of jobs that are suitable for people with disabilities or lack of college education or other issues -- those jobs jobs are being taken over by "software robots". My employer and lots of other similar companies are using them to automate stuff so that those people are no longer needed. Robots are not taking over your world -- just some jobs which mean the world to some people who have those jobs!

thinkloop 7y ago

It doesn't answer the title? Why won't they take over? I thought he was going to discuss the exponential difficulty of AI as it approaches human parity.

meesles 7y ago

There is no point made here that robots won't take over the world, he just belabors the point that it is hard to make robots replicate exactly what humans do. Automation will eat everything, it's just a matter of time. Even his problem of 'visually identifying weeds and uprooting them' does not come across as a massive problem, but one that can probably be solved with enough time and demand. Platitudes like these give false hopes to workers who should be training and preparing for the next phase of industry, and IMO serves people like the author who need complacent workers to give them time to come up with their money-making solutions.

ianbicking 7y ago
I think this underestimates the incredible engineering of the human body. It runs at 100W, while retaining the ability to execute both very high torque actions and fine motor actions, with self-healing grip, and an ability to engage increasing numbers of muscles and the weight of the machine itself to accomplish tasks. One thing I didn't quite realized needed teaching until I taught my daughter: how do you tell when a screw is going in right? It might have resistance because of gunk or rust, or it might be misaligned. Determining the right action is incredibly sophisticated, the difference between the slight easing of resistance with old oil or the springiness when the threads are pushing against each other and deforming. In response you might draw out and try again, or push harder, all while still trying to feel out what's really happening. Automation is great for screws in factories. We don't have anything on the horizon that has the physical flexibility and power of a human. To the degree we can reconfigure problems to match a robot's capabilities, then yes, automation may be inevitable. A lot of problems aren't like that.
- blacksmith_tb 7y ago
  Along these lines, I still think Marshall Brain is likely to be proved correct, he predicted automation would instead replace middle management, and then direct unskilled labor in his novel Manna[1]. 1:http://marshallbrain.com/manna.htm http://marshallbrain.com/manna.htm
  - 7y ago

petra 7y ago

So OK, it's a good criteria for robotics companies: Do a valuable task, do it today, do it for less. And companies following that, and i'll add - aiming for B2B, even when failed, we'll see their competitors and industry succeed. You can see it from his list of failed companies, where only Unbounded robotics(smart robot hand), Rethink(collaborative robotics), Blue workforce(collaborative), Aria insights(drones) have seen their work continue successfully in their industry. But yes, robots for the home are much harder. So maybe robots won't take over the world, but they might take over businesses.

ianbicking 7y ago
I think it's a bit easier for businesses to reconfigure to change the essential job and make it easier for robots. E.g., a business can put guide wires in the concrete. I can do the same in my yard... but I'm not going to do it in my house. Perhaps this is because the business is already slave to its function. The exact separation and makeup of businesses reflects efficient ways to split up problems and integrate with other businesses. It's possible to refactor that given a robot that can perform a certain kind of action that is not directly equivalent to one person's job right now. But my home is my home, it serves me, I do not serve it. For instance, one could imagine redesigning clothing to make robotic cleaning and folding of clothing feasible. I'm not going to do that! But redesigning PPE for that process in a hospital is not at all unreasonable.

credit_guy 7y ago

Before spreadsheet software (Excel, etc) showed up, some people were using actual physical spreadsheets (very large pieces of paper). Spreadsheet software appeared to make that job obsolete. And indeed it did. Nobody uses the paper spreadsheets anymore. But how many people use the computer spreadsheets? Hundreds of millions? It's going to be the same with robots. Maybe actual lathes will disappear, but there will be computerized things that will perform that job, and people manning the computers. Some of the jobs will be automated (think Excel macros), but many will require human interaction and iterations.

JoeAltmaier 7y ago

Roomba is a very old concept, missing almost everything that makes modern robots interesting. No vision; not much memory; no model of the environment; no knowledge of physics. Just a tuned mechanism and simple algorithm to wander around an barely pick up some dirt. Don't get me wrong; its terribly useful. I own a knockoff. But not a model of what robots could be, today. Think of facial-recognition drones delivering voice messages to people in a crowd. Think auto-drive cars and the terabytes of data and kilowatts of energy they command. Think of the Netflix algorithm for suggesting movies. Lightyears beyond Roomba. Yes, automation will eat our lunch. Because automation is eating our lunch. Factories, city planning, scheduling, diagnosing - all sorts of automated processes are in industry and consumer space right now. Just ask Siri about it if you still have doubts.

simplyaccont 7y ago
Actually Roombas for a while already have vision and model/map their environment.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  Ok. But they have tiny little processors (5?) that each do a tiny little task with a smidgen of RAM. Is the 'vision' feature real, or just a light intensity detector? Can you get a picture out of it? I'm dubious. As for the model/map, how does it sense location? Dead reckoning? Not a very significant feature if it can't find itself on the map, nor use the map to choose a route. Which I doubt (from videos of the Roomba in action)
  - qchris 7y ago
    It depends on the model, but I think that your impression of Roomba, either through experience or the technology that the author of this article presented is really out-of-date. Even on past models, they have Visual Simultaneous Location and Mapping (VSLAM) tech that is far, far beyond dead reckoning. The even more recent version (not sure if there's been a release since) also has persistent maps, so it actually can find itself on the map and choose routes[2]. I'm not sure what exactly the processors are, but considering the supply-chain investments that've gone into mobile processor development for smartphones, I think it's likely unfair to characterize them as "tiny little processors". Disclosure: I did an internship at iRobot a few years ago, although the overwhelming majority of my work wasn't related to Roomba products. [1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/irobot-brings-visual-mapping-and-navigation-to-the-roomba-980 https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/iro... [2] https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/new-roomba-i7-features-persistent-maps-room-cleaning https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/new...

michaelbuckbee 7y ago

I've been trying to make Buckbee's Law happen for a while: "The more a robot looks like a robot the less useful it is." Take fast food as an example: what's really going to change things are automated systems that reduce the number of people needed to run the place. Look at things like touchscreen ordering systems that cut the number of people talking to you. That's not a "robot" but it is automation of a sort.

mechagodzilla 7y ago
These aren't really much of an improvement in efficiency though - self-checkout kiosks for stores have been around since at least the early 2000s, and they're still much slower than minimum-wage cashiers with a little experience (maybe Amazon will finally change this, but the tech my local grocery has is definitely as bad as the kiosk I worked alongside in 2003). It takes me much longer to order using a kiosk at a McDonald's than it takes me to tell a cashier what I want. I remember using a touch-screen kiosk at a Subway back in 2005, and my local subway 15 years later still doesn't have them. This ultra rise in productivity just isn't actually happening despite what conversations on hacker news (and before that, digg, and before that, slashdot) keep insisting on.
- pixl97 7y ago
  The kiosk isn't the productivity increase. The app I order 10 minutes before I get there and the foods already finished is.
- kalleboo 7y ago
  There are other types of efficiency than time. At my supermarket, they replaced 2 regular checkouts with 8 self-checkouts in the same floor space. During rush hour, this greatly increases throughput despite actual scanning time perhaps being slower. At McDonalds, it means they can higher fewer staff which means a cost efficiency.

magwa101 7y ago

Oh no, they won't?? What got DJT in office???

khant2021 7y ago

Yes you are right they even can't do this

efdwefwfwerf 7y ago

I don't think anybody with a serious knowledge of AI, motion planning, computational geometry, real-time sensors (ex. military) or much of anything else things Roomba confers distinction. So why do I care about what this guy things about robots? That's right. I don't.

JabavuAdams 7y ago
Because designing a reliable product that's used by millions is so easy compared to duct-taping some research contraption together and cherry-picking to get your PhD. What's with all the disrespect. I think people are reacting to the link-bait title, and not what was actually written. It's 2020. Realize that the title will be exaggerated and that responding to that is just a straw-man argument.
- 7532yahoogmail 7y ago
  Oh c'mon ... Roomba is a PCA with a motor and basic sensors and what not. See comments above: nobody thinks Roomba confers distinction on the hardware or software side. So now what? We're gonna skip 10 magnitudes of 10 from simple to talking about "I Robot" material? No. It's used by millions of people for good old fashioned manufacturing reasons, and because it's cheap That's it

strooper 7y ago

When someone talks about robots destroying the mankind, I start picturing scenes from movies or tv series (i.e. Terminator, iRobot, Westworld so on) where human like robots try to destroy the mankind. Robots taking over the world may not be eminent. However, greedy people taking over the world with the help of robots and AI is already being facilitated for quite some time. Governments acquiring technology to hush the oppositions and free speech around the world is a common phenomena around the world. Usage of data along with AI to pinpoint, target and destroy enemies is being used for over a decade. It is the usage of data and AI by the greedy community we need to be more concerned about, not silly imitation of life that barely perceives the world.

sn41 7y ago

That definitely clears up a long-standing doubt caused by a lesson in computational geometry - how does Roomba know when it is done cleaning a room? It seems that the simple answer is that it doesn't.