19 ms·

Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company

385 points by haberdasher 5y ago

zabzonk 5y ago
> Unlocking the creative and economic potential of industrial robotics for millions more businesses, entrepreneurs, and developers No. Just no. Why can't we downvote OPs here?
- valeness 5y ago
  Forgive me, but what's wrong with this?
- outsidetheparty 5y ago
  On the face of it I’m not understanding the instant dismissal of the idea — what’s objectionable about this?
  - zabzonk 5y ago
    It doesn't make any sense. "Unlocking", "creative", "economic"? If you believe this BS, then good luck to you.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - joshu 5y ago
    this is hacker news, where scorn is the major currency
    - canadaduane 5y ago
      I think Hacker News tries hard to be constructive in its criticism and even upbeat. Consider the guideline: "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html One of the reasons I visit hacker news is because of the collective will to try to abide by guidelines like these.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Vivtek 5y ago
Weird. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27861201 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27861201
- rexreed 5y ago
  The list of Robot company failures and the robotic industry dead pool runs very deep. Just in the past few years: * Rethink Robotics https://www.zdnet.com/article/sudden-unexpected-demise-of-rethink-robotics-shakes-up-automation-industry/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/sudden-unexpected-demise-of-re... * Anki https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/consumer-robotics-company-anki-abruptly-shuts-down https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/con... * Jibo https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/jibo-is-probably-totally-dead-now https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/jib... * Blue Workforce https://www.therobotreport.com/blue-workforce-robot-files-bankruptcy/ https://www.therobotreport.com/blue-workforce-robot-files-ba... * Mayfield Robotics (Kuri) https://www.heykuri.com/blog/important_difficult_announcement/ https://www.heykuri.com/blog/important_difficult_announcemen... * Starsky Robotics https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2020/03/20/why-this-bay-area-autonomous-freight-trucking.html https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2020/03/20/why... * Reach Robotics https://www.therobotreport.com/reach-robotics-shuts-down-consumer-business/ https://www.therobotreport.com/reach-robotics-shuts-down-con... * Google Schaft https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/15/18096469/google-robotics-schaft-japanese-bipedal-shut-down https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/15/18096469/google-robotics... * Willow Garage https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-02-20/robotics-research-lab-willow-garage-shuts-down https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-02-20/robotics-... * Honda Asimo https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/28/17514134/honda-asimo-humanoid-robot-retire https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/28/17514134/honda-asimo-huma... * Amazon Vesta https://venturebeat.com/2019/09/28/amazons-vesta-no-show-highlights-the-challenges-of-home-robots/ https://venturebeat.com/2019/09/28/amazons-vesta-no-show-hig... Everyone thinks that they are somehow different, but all these firms fail for the same reason. Robotics is hard. The market is not that big. Lots of costs. Investors are skittish. The combination of those things isn't that good.
  - Igelau 5y ago
    It's not that the robotics is hard. It's hard to stop the time-traveling saboteurs from the Resistance from undermining you.
tlhunter 5y ago
Well they don't have intrinsic.com or twitter.com/intrinsic... Those are still associated with a tech startup from a couple years ago: https://twitter.com/intrinsic/status/1164007322932277249?s=19 https://twitter.com/intrinsic/status/1164007322932277249?s=1...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
nynx 5y ago
This is great. A concerted effort to make robots be able to assemble and make more things. This is a piece of the puzzle of building a machine of machines that can make almost anything without human intervention. Are they hiring interns?
- visarga 5y ago
  > building a machine of machines a self replicating robot / factory / 3d-printer, a potentially new form of life
kevincox 5y ago
The title should probably be "Introducing Intrinsic" to match the source and be much more meaningful.
- gopalv 5y ago
  Not just that. > I’m now leading Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company > After five and a half years developing our technology at X, we’re now ready to become an independent Alphabet company, leaving the moonshot factory’s rapid prototyping environment If you don't know what "X" in Alphabet/Google is, then this announcement looks a little vague and confusing, not like the skunkworks unveil it is supposed to be.
  - dang 5y ago
    Ok, we've added the Alphabet above.
geodel 5y ago
Nothing says serious business more than a Medium post.
- dang 5y ago
  "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
soheil 5y ago
This is a Google company.
- nostromo 5y ago
  This was a helpful comment when it was made. Downvoters should know that the original title didn’t mention Alphabet or Google; that was added later.
nodejs_rulez_1 5y ago
So they are scripting Kuka robots effectively? Well, actually if they do some AI stuff that might be impressive. I guess stationary robots are seen as less of a reputational risk in comparison with Boston Robotics nighmares.
thesausageking 5y ago
> "when I was just starting Moonfruit, the world’s first SAAS website builder" Moonfruit, launched in 2000, was definitely not the first SaaS website builder. Geocities launched 6 years before it and there were dozens of them by the time Moonfruit came around. While not a big lie, it's an odd way to start a post like this.
- z3ncyberpunk 5y ago
  Not odd at all, it's standard startup delusion trying to chase clout
- sp332 5y ago
  Geocities was free and didn't really provide any "software" in the service. It was a static web host.
  - srhngpr 5y ago
    Geocities had a WYSIWYG website builder, so yes there was some software involved. It's how I learned how to build my first website when I was 12.
- galdosdi 5y ago
  Funnily enough, one of those dozens of examples hits close to home here: A main source of the original fortune that funded the creation of YC and thus Hacker News was the $49m sale to Yahoo! of Viaweb, a SaaS website builder (focused on ecommerce) founded by Paul Graham, Trevor Blackwell, and Robert Morris in 1995.
eurasiantiger 5y ago
But how can robots be used to harvest personal data? Maybe this is an end-use case.
- warkdarrior 5y ago
  At this point personal data is irrelevant, the new goal is for robots to harvest persons directly.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - jmeister 5y ago
    Quite a modest proposal.
- 411111111111111 5y ago
  It's the most effective Trojan horse if they actually succeed in general robotics. Currently the amount of people using Google home is tiny. But imagine if you can just say "Google, make me a sandwich" and a few moments later the robot comes along.... And the automatic cleanup etc. People would buy them instantly, giving Google all the private data of households which would have never bought any of the current "smart assistants" I'm pretty sure that household robotics is going to be the by far most profitable field if general robotics is ever achieved, as literally all households will want one, just like a washing machine.
  - eurasiantiger 5y ago
    The problem with household robotics is that people who have the dough for the maid-bot probably own stuff way too expensive to have it cleaned by a robot. The Lusty Automaton Maid, on the other hand, is sure to sell like botcakes.
- code_duck 5y ago
  The Roomba sure is good at (pardon me) sucking up personal data.
nieksand 5y ago
Google owned Boston Dynamics at one point. I'm curious what made them flip flop back to robotics again.
- genericone 5y ago
  Promising generalized solutions that apply to the physical world from advances at DeepMind (AlphaFold) perhaps?
- rhacker 5y ago
  BD seems like it's mostly interesting in creating dogs. This new thing seems like it's a generic robot for making objects.
  - FunnyLookinHat 5y ago
    That was certainly the perception I used to have, but this demo video changed my mind. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn3KWM1kuAw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn3KWM1kuAw
    - gerash 5y ago
      BD focus has been mainly on control and locomotion whereas what Goog wants is neural net-ification of perception and control altogether.
- jcims 5y ago
  These are complementary developments, Boston Dynamics is building robots that excel at navigating the world in the way its built. This seems to be intent on building robots that excel at interacting with the world in the way it wants. The latter has a much broader customer base. From picking fruits to folding shirts to installing a headliner into a new vehicle, there are many applications.
- duped 5y ago
  X has done a lot of robotics projects. Boston dynamics wasn't Alphabet's only attempt.
csours 5y ago
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.
- eloff 5y ago
  Probably both, to the extent that it's practical.
  - csours 5y ago
    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?
- falcor84 5y ago
  I'd say invest in the former, as having better robot control schemes should allow you to more easily iterate on different design alternatives
- klysm 5y ago
  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.
- Animats 5y ago
  That's a very interesting question. Apple was once into design for assembly. The Macintosh IIci was Apple's peak at design for assembly. It was designed for vertical assembly. Everything clicks into place with a straight-down insertion move. No wiring harnesses. The power supply plugs into the motherboard. An automated plant in Fremont CA did the assembly. Then Apple gave up on design for assembly and went to offshoring and cheap labor. Motorola flip phones were designed for automated assembly. All parts were on boards, and the boards were stacked and compressed into a solid block, with bumps on the boards making connections to the next layer. A tough, reliable phone resulted. Then Motorola gave up and went to offshoring and cheap labor. Sony pioneered this approach. The Sony Walkman,, the original tape unit with motors and contra-rotating flywheels, was built for vertical assembly and assembled by a simple Cartesian robot. Then came the iPod.
yellow_lead 5y ago
Funnily, their scroll capture is totally broken on their website [1] at least on my version of Firefox. Also, it's strange that they don't have their own website when they're a separate company. I guess it shows the ephemeral nature of these projects. [1] https://x.company/projects/intrinsic/ https://x.company/projects/intrinsic/
- jasonvorhe 5y ago
  Because, uhm, it's one of multiple projects? See: https://x.company/projects/ https://x.company/projects/
  - yellow_lead 5y ago
    Right, they seem like a project not a company. I suppose they can put in a request to have Alphabet fix the website, they may not have the autonomy for that themselves.
- dEnigma 5y ago
  Wow, you're right. At least on Linux with Firefox 90.0.2 scrolling with the mouse wheel moves the page by such huge steps that it's basically unusable. Had to navigate with the arrow keys instead.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
baq 5y ago
i might be willing to free up my garage for a laundry folding robot
- amelius 5y ago
  I'm freeing up my garage for a robot that knits me a new set of clothes every day.
- munificent 5y ago
  If you pay me as much as it would cost to buy one of these robots, I'll come fold your laundry for you. I'll make "beep boop" sounds at no extra cost.
motohagiography 5y ago
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 https://unitylist.com/p/2id/walking-ai ) to reasoning about it in terms of actuators and physical feedback, to assembling a physical model out of a relatively small list of parts seems like a solvable engineering problem when it is broken out into a pipeline. Those robot parts are basically a version of mechano with actuators that a model would map a behavior to, and the robots in the article would assemble them. When you look at something like Lego or Mechano as an intermediate representation to construct buildings out of, where all objects made from it are essentially a directed graph of those elements, robots designing and building robots seems like less than 20 years away. e.g. we could functionally specify to an ML model, "produce a digraph of these element parts that has these degrees of freedom, and then load or derive a model that solves for this outcome within the domain of those degrees, where outcome is 'plug cables into a board' "
- neltnerb 5y ago
  https://www.mujin.co.jp/en/ 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 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.
  - taldo 5y ago
    The few Mujin videos I watched look a lot like PCB assembly pick-n-place machines. A little bit of computer vision, a little sensing here and there, but overall fairly simple pre-programmed moves, on a pretty controlled environment.
ccchapman 5y ago
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.
- lbhdc 5y ago
  Weird, its loading fine in firefox for desktop and mobile for me.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - johndough 5y ago
    Do you mean the blog? That works for me as well, but scrolling on https://x.company https://x.company is broken.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- davidholdeman 5y ago
  Same here. One detent of the scroll wheel and it's 2/3 of the way down the page. I tried disabling smooth scrolling, but that didn't fix it. Note that we're talking about the home page, x.company, not the page linked.
  - rhizome 5y ago
    They only hire the best of the best!
- neogodless 5y ago
  Took me a bit to get to the web site, since I was lost in Medium land for a while, but there's an unlinked text-only "www.x.company" at the bottom I could copy/paste. But yeah scroll speed is ludicrous!
- 5y ago
htrp 5y ago
It seem that this company is doing more of the middleware and higher level interfaces/adding intelligence to industrial robots than they are trying to build their own robots (Google tried that at least 3 times and failed). Anecdotally, I've heard that FANUCs don't respond well at all to any input deviation.
- themodelplumber 5y ago
  That's similar to the way you could say the founder's startup Moonfruit which launched back in 2000 was more about producing Flash SWF files than websites. Maybe the model has some traction for a group of people who find that sort of help applicable or not harmful to their own business model.
falcor84 5y ago
>...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?
- extropy 5y ago
  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.
  - falcor84 5y ago
    >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
    - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
      Yep, people will do all the jobs.... even hard, shitty jobs... just not for minimum wage.
    - downWidOutaFite 5y ago
      The other implication is that the US is unwilling to take advantage of the millions of people that want to immigrate here.
      - downWidOutaFite 5y ago
        I'm guessing this comment got down voted because Americans are against immigration in general. But whether its a good idea or not the fact remains that our desirability as a place to live could be used to satisfy any labor shortage.
    - colinmhayes 5y ago
      Or that Americans aren't willing to work for the prevailing global wage that manufacturing workers demand. Why would any company keep manufacturing here when labor is so expensive? Effective manufacturing robots would allow manufacturing to move back to the us.
amirhirsch 5y ago
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.
- IshKebab 5y ago
  I agree, and the cost. Automation hardware is just fundamentally really really expensive. I guess part of that is due to the small market, but I'm a bit skeptical that they will ever bring robot arms to the masses just because robot arms are super expensive. The ability to plug in cables and whatnot looks like a useful ability but I'm guessing this will just be sort of like really good traditional robotic control software rather than anything really fundamentally different.
xor99 5y ago
Robotics is not a software problem and SV companies bias is towards software development (a little different with X but still apparent). I think most companies that try to throw data at existing problems in robotics using existing machines will have a hard time matching human efficiency. For example, in something as straightforward as the usb insertion task. Hardware and mechanical is like 95% of the problem so there's a need to take the approach of making the machines that make and then add the software on top and developing synthetic task orientated data from that. E.g. the dishwasher, which works because its physically designed for washing plates and then automation was added. The robot arm is a general purpose technology that has been around in the same form since the 60s/70s. There are many options as alternatives (e.g. magnetic assembly or even self-assembly in certain industries) but ofc these are incredibly risky commercially. I'm aware that this is just the first post and the above is well known in robotics development so excited to see what gets built!
- YetAnotherNick 5y ago
  But it is a software problem. Surprised that you mentioned robotic arm, which is basically just 3-5 servo/stepper motors connected to case and not super complicated to build with 3d printers. It's the software that powers it. Boston dynamics robots are not the top of the line in terms of hardware. It is the software that gives their robot the power to even stand up, which anyone who has coded the robot knows it only looks easy.
  - glitchc 5y ago
    Why does it have to be servos in the first place? A very narrow way to think of robotics. Boston Dynamics is more about the hw than the sw.
  - gopalv 5y ago
    > But it is a software problem. There is a software authoring problem (which is where the ML bits are crucial). If we had to program all robots like we had to with CNC machines, then programming them would be a high skill problem, even if we throw a lot of tools at it. I can work my way through a Tormach, but is that really what I want to spend time with? The ultra low level specification of what I need done? I'd love a pedal based training system with something like "Identify", "Orient", "Place", "Count", "Test" to teach it things in steps & get a program out of the demonstration (that donut computer vision project was amazing, because it showed you didn't really need ML to do these things). Like we have people who are demonstration learners, I wish I could do something like that of going from many scenarios to a final one and have the robot to dissect every one of my actions into a flow-chart of its own.
tofuahdude 5y ago
What is the point of the first paragraph?
truthwhisperer 5y ago
you are becoming evil
aazaa 5y ago
> Back in the late 90s when I was just starting Moonfruit, the world’s first SAAS website builder, creating your own website was hard. From setting up your own server, to working with an ISP, to getting a content delivery network and integrating a middleware layer to communicate with your computer, to design and UX — creating a website was a lengthy multi-step process that was only accessible to a small group of technical experts or large companies. It wasn’t until websites were simple and easy to make that the full creative and business potential of the web really began to blossom. It's not good that this introductory post doesn't start right off with a problem to be solved. Instead it presents the credentials of the current leader. If I had to pick out the problem, it would be this sentence, contained in the fourth paragraph: > Currently just 10 countries manufacture 70% of the world’s goods. In the fifth paragraph, we get a more clear phrasing of the problem: > The surprisingly manual and bespoke process of teaching robots how to do things, which hasn’t changed much over the last few decades, is currently a cap on their potential to help more businesses. Ok, so this is going to be a company that solves the problem of poor usability of industrial robots through machine learning. The larger goal is to put manufacturing capacity closer to consumers for better sustainability.
- MattRix 5y ago
  The purpose of the first paragraph is not to present the credentials of the leader. The purpose is to make a parallel between the current state of the robotics industry and the creative & commercial expansion of the web once the technology became more accessible.
  - aazaa 5y ago
    I'm saying it doesn't work as a paragraph to do that. The article makes the reader work to figure out what this thing is.
Animats 5y ago
Nice. Here's much the same job, being done almost 50 years ago, by a robot at the Stanford AI lab.[1] This robot has both vision and force feedback, and uses them to assemble an automotive water pump. It does the coarse alignment visually, and the fine alignment by feel. [1] https://archive.org/details/sailfilm_pump https://archive.org/details/sailfilm_pump
- amelius 5y ago
  I'm still waiting for a robot that can assemble a LEGO model from a pile of Legos.
  - arkitaip 5y ago
    Probably faster and easier to get offspring who can do it for you.
    - dcolkitt 5y ago
      Make sure to initialize with random weights
      - MerrilyX5 5y ago
        tabula random weights is an interesting way to think about it
  - bombcar 5y ago
    https://www.wired.com/2010/10/legobot/ https://www.wired.com/2010/10/legobot/
    - amelius 5y ago
      Thanks for the link. It seems to me that this is rather specialized, and would run into trouble with designs that have a very small base. Also, the number of parts is limited. Imho, this is closer to a printer than to a general model assembly robot.
tus89 5y ago
I have always wanted a robot to plug the HDMI cable into my TV. Life will never be the same.
lifeisstillgood 5y ago
To me, this is robot vs process - how much do we need clever robots and how much do we need to change the job. There is an old saw about the transition from steam powered factories to electrical power. Initially the large steam engine was in one location, and basically its power was delivered by belts running off one central location. The factories initially tried to replace the steam engine with one big electric motor, and it worked ok but the factory was still a hub and spoke and pieces had to be moved from one spoke to the next. It was not until a new generation of factories were built with many motors at any point in the factory that the modern line was built. Of course this is a massive simplification, but I look at two robots using 10 m2 to assemble some Ikea cabinet, and think "awesome geekery" but if you want a factory producing pre-made furniture go back at least three-steps. Robots that can replace a human arm in the assembly process just feel like we are replacing that big steam engine in the middle of the factory. And, yes industrial robots is where you start, of course. But a factory can change its process to eliminate the need for a general purpose robot. But the home - that's a different story. * Take up two "normal" sizes of a washing machine. A hopper accepts clothes, sorts them using RFID tags, and begins a run in a smaller drum, spins, dries and folds them. (yes, its probably magic but this would be on everyone's XMAS list) * (completely foregoing everything I just said) a mobile robot arm that can learn where each item in a house belongs. 3D tracking, ML etc, and it picks up the toys my kids have left lying around. * I am not sure where the "robot" vs "process" sits here, but food purchase and prep is a large time sink for many, but there seems to be a viable disintermediation of supermarkets - I mean if i choose a decent set of meals for a week, why send the food to the supermarket so it can use its shelves as a collection point to send it on to me. And if the food is picked so i get "nice meal on Saturday" plus "something with the extra Tues lunch" I think there is a real possibility of robots making the middle class home like a B&B. As Jerry Hall said, "My Mother told me if I wanted to keep a man I needed to be a Chef in the Kitchen, a Maid in the living room and a Whore in the bedroom. I said I would hire the first two and take care of the rest myself." Edit: honestly I am not trying to be HN-negative, and I think all this investment is only going to build better robots. Which is a win. But I remain under-convinced that building general-purpose robots to replace general-purpose humans, when humans are already having the easy bits replaced by specific purpose robots is a good idea - it feels like running uphill.
okareaman 5y ago
I really dislike this writing structure of "before I get to the point, let me tell you a story about my life" Edit: I'm not alone, https://style.mla.org/dont-bury-the-lede/ https://style.mla.org/dont-bury-the-lede/
- jszymborski 5y ago
  Maybe I'm off base here, as it's no small feat by any means, but it's especially jarring to read when "first-website-building-SaaS" has so little to do with industrial robotics at its surface.
  - ManBlanket 5y ago
    I had a similar impression. It was jarring to say the least and made me ask so many questions that had nothing to do with the story. Does this person lead every tech related conversation with, "When I was the CEO of Moonbeans, the world's first SAAS blockchain beanbag chair crowd sourcing platform" just to buy some credibility? Why do they feel the need to tell us that? Do they have inadequacy issues or is it the opposite? I can barely remember what that article was about. Robotics? Oh, right, shame it's an Alphabet subsidiary. It's bound to end up in the Google graveyard when it fails to be one of the top 10 most profitable companies in the world. Even if they do great things and make a great product, it's the fate which will inevitably follow most of Alphabet's projects until the SEC breaks them up, this being one of many good reasons.
- lanewinfield 5y ago
  You will not be a fan of recipe blogs anywhere on the internet.
  - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
    Those have gotten way worse. It’s an SEO thing right?
    - loa_in_ 5y ago
armatav 5y ago
The last GIF is Portal
Workaccount2 5y ago
If you can't program it by directly showing it what to do, throw it in the bin. They probably intend for it to be SaaS too, effectively having you pay a workers wage for a truly terrible worker. You're competing with general intelligence robots that cost $12 - $15/hr. That's 10 years of full time labor for $300,000. No shot. This looks like something designed to attract ignorant investors/talent who think small time manufacturing looks like a Ford plant but with less robots and more humans. In reality it looks something closer to Grandma's kitchen on Thanksgiving. How are you gonna stick a robot in there and have Uncle Fred program it? I can't see this as anything other than a flashy high school engineering project. Much wow! little application. Source: Work in domestic manufacturing. <$50 million company. Mostly do government/military electronics building.
- justicezyx 5y ago
  When you are working on domestic manufacturing, what automation you have? How much of that is programmed by human (in house and from vendor?) This is definitely far from mass adoption. But somewhere certain expensive product might benefit from this. Guess: mechanical watch assembly, given the amount of manual labor, and the claimed learning ability, it seems possible for a robot to assemble a 1milions worth of Swiss watch.
- danield9tqh 5y ago
  Assuming 8hr work days and a 250 day working year for humans. No such constraints for robots. That's 2,000 hrs/yr for a human vs 8,760 (assuming 24/7) hours for a robot. Obviously there will be other costs for robots (downtime, electricity, repair etc) so no telling whether it will be worth it in the long run but the hour calculation there does seem a little off.
fredliu 5y ago
It's interesting at a time OpenAI dropped its robotics branch...
jacobmischka 5y ago
Off topic: Wow, X's main website[1] is infuriating. The scrolling is very janky with a touchpad, and the carousel at the bottom of the page which highlights projects in a timeline advances way too fast to read it comfortably, and there isn't any obvious way to pause on a slide. Shame, because I was actually interested in learning more about their projects. [1]: https://x.company https://x.company
i386 5y ago
I’m “unlocking” that this will be dead within 18 months. It will get too hard and bored engineers will head back to Google Corp where the promotion game is better. I’m in manufacturing. Machinery is highly specialised. Making a generic robot without taking up huge amount of floor space and/or huge leaps in programming is like… Kubernetes being good for hosting your moms book club blog.
- danieldisu 5y ago
  I'll remind myself in 2 years to see the state of this
  - kybishop 5y ago
    Given that this is Google, my money is on them either abandoning it, or making a new version every 2-3 years (for no discernable reason) making no actual progress as a result. I would LOVE to be proven wrong, but Google's track record with bringing products to market, and actually keeping them for longer than a media boost, is downright depressing. At some point it feels like every Google side project is just a media buy for their real business: hiring engineers to drive more ad revenue, engineers who are enticed by shiny projects like these.
    - foobiekr 5y ago
      It’s not depressing, it’s wonderful. Google’s abject failure in almost every area is great. They have nearly unlimited resources and a fantastic (though but as great as they think) engineering pool. It would suck if they managed to successfully attack adjacencies.
      - kybishop 5y ago
        I have a hard time calling immense wastes of resources "wonderful". Think of how many man-hours of at least better-than-average engineers have been wasted developing something like 5 separate chat apps... it's absurd.
- 5y ago
NelsonMinar 5y ago
The domain name reminds me of x.com, Elon Musk's 1999 company that became PayPal. It was one of only 3 single letter .com domains. I have a memory that its issuance was a mistake or some sort of strange deal but I can't find any evidence for that now.
jliptzin 5y ago
How is it possible that we don’t have robots to do very basic household tasks such as fold laundry by now?
- morcheeba 5y ago
  I currently have a robot washing my clothes, another robot washing my dishes, a third robot vacuuming my floors. Cybernetic systems adjust the temperature in my house and water my lawn. I even have a little robot I keep in the freezer to make ice cubes while I sleep. So, two answers - 1. folding laundry is a difficult technical challenge. 2. when we get a robot to do that task, we won't call it a robot.
  - Twixes 5y ago
    My quick test for a robot would be: does it have at least one appendage-like part performing a task? A washing machine has nothing like that, but a Kuka robot practically is a programmable arm, and Boston Dynamics robots have legs.
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    If it has an arm sort of thing doing it, we very well may. If your drying machine had an arm putting clothing up on pins in your backyard vs being a box you dump clothing into, we’d likely call it a robot. Some people do refer to automatic vacuums and other things that move automatically robots too.
- IshKebab 5y ago
  Because folding laundry is extremely difficult for robots, easy for humans and people are not willing to pay much money or give up much space for a laundry folding robot.
- dimatura 5y ago
  This reminds me of a Louis CK bit, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBtKNzoKZ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBtKNzoKZ4. Folding laundry (and more generally, manipulating deformable objects) is actually a pretty tough task for robots. So there has been some research on it, and you can find videos of robots doing it (very slowly). I guess we'll get there eventually, but right now even if it's possible, it's not at a level of speed, robustness and cost where it makes sense.
simsla 5y ago
TL;DR: making industrial (e.g. manufacturing) robots easier to use, by improving sensing, planning, etc. I suspect that Dr. Chelsea Finn's work in meta-learning (affiliated with Stanford and GBrain, when I saw it last year) might play a big part here, which is e.a. about generalisation of RL policies to out of domain tasks. (E.g. similar task, but slightly different tools, slightly different task, etc.) Learning IRL (cameras and actuators) reinforcement learning policies is a huge time sink, so generalisation is a hugely important task. Related solutions can be found in simulation->real generalisation, also an active topic of research.
marmada 5y ago
I notice a lot of pessimism -- presumably at some point someone is going to build much better robots than the ones we have today. (Surely we are not anywhere close to the end game of robotics). I'm inclined to believe Google, with all of its resources, has as good a shot as any.
fouc 5y ago
from the name Intrinsic I thought it was gonna be mainly about inserting chips into the brain. Perhaps the robotics is the first step.
allo37 5y ago
I used to work a bit with industrial robots and I found the biggest issue wasn't a lack of innovative technology but how hard it was to access: Everything was an expensive "option", the programming languages and tools were dinosaurs, and documentation was treated like some kind of sacred text, only for the eyes of the exalted. Maybe with a "software" approach to this we'll see better and more open tools.
robertwt7 5y ago
Robotics.. After machine learning and crypto era, we've come to robotics era.. Soon, terminator baby
nazrulmum10 5y ago
Over the last few years, our team has been exploring how to give industrial robots the ability to sense, learn, and automatically make adjustments as they’re completing tasks, so they work in a wider range of settings and applications. Working in collaboration with teams across Alphabet, and with our partners in real-world manufacturing settings, we’ve been testing software that uses techniques like automated perception, deep learning, reinforcement learning, motion planning, simulation, and force control.
xyst 5y ago
Intrinsic reminds me of Hooli,xyz

385 points by haberdasher 5y ago

> Unlocking the creative and economic potential of industrial robotics for millions more businesses, entrepreneurs, and developers No. Just no. Why can't we downvote OPs here?

valeness 5y ago
Forgive me, but what's wrong with this?
outsidetheparty 5y ago
On the face of it I’m not understanding the instant dismissal of the idea — what’s objectionable about this?
- zabzonk 5y ago
  It doesn't make any sense. "Unlocking", "creative", "economic"? If you believe this BS, then good luck to you.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- joshu 5y ago
  this is hacker news, where scorn is the major currency
  - canadaduane 5y ago
    I think Hacker News tries hard to be constructive in its criticism and even upbeat. Consider the guideline: "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html One of the reasons I visit hacker news is because of the collective will to try to abide by guidelines like these.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Vivtek 5y ago

Weird. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27861201 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27861201

rexreed 5y ago
The list of Robot company failures and the robotic industry dead pool runs very deep. Just in the past few years: * Rethink Robotics https://www.zdnet.com/article/sudden-unexpected-demise-of-rethink-robotics-shakes-up-automation-industry/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/sudden-unexpected-demise-of-re... * Anki https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/consumer-robotics-company-anki-abruptly-shuts-down https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/con... * Jibo https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/jibo-is-probably-totally-dead-now https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/jib... * Blue Workforce https://www.therobotreport.com/blue-workforce-robot-files-bankruptcy/ https://www.therobotreport.com/blue-workforce-robot-files-ba... * Mayfield Robotics (Kuri) https://www.heykuri.com/blog/important_difficult_announcement/ https://www.heykuri.com/blog/important_difficult_announcemen... * Starsky Robotics https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2020/03/20/why-this-bay-area-autonomous-freight-trucking.html https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2020/03/20/why... * Reach Robotics https://www.therobotreport.com/reach-robotics-shuts-down-consumer-business/ https://www.therobotreport.com/reach-robotics-shuts-down-con... * Google Schaft https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/15/18096469/google-robotics-schaft-japanese-bipedal-shut-down https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/15/18096469/google-robotics... * Willow Garage https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-02-20/robotics-research-lab-willow-garage-shuts-down https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-02-20/robotics-... * Honda Asimo https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/28/17514134/honda-asimo-humanoid-robot-retire https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/28/17514134/honda-asimo-huma... * Amazon Vesta https://venturebeat.com/2019/09/28/amazons-vesta-no-show-highlights-the-challenges-of-home-robots/ https://venturebeat.com/2019/09/28/amazons-vesta-no-show-hig... Everyone thinks that they are somehow different, but all these firms fail for the same reason. Robotics is hard. The market is not that big. Lots of costs. Investors are skittish. The combination of those things isn't that good.
- Igelau 5y ago
  It's not that the robotics is hard. It's hard to stop the time-traveling saboteurs from the Resistance from undermining you.

tlhunter 5y ago

Well they don't have intrinsic.com or twitter.com/intrinsic... Those are still associated with a tech startup from a couple years ago: https://twitter.com/intrinsic/status/1164007322932277249?s=19 https://twitter.com/intrinsic/status/1164007322932277249?s=1...

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

nynx 5y ago

This is great. A concerted effort to make robots be able to assemble and make more things. This is a piece of the puzzle of building a machine of machines that can make almost anything without human intervention. Are they hiring interns?

visarga 5y ago
> building a machine of machines a self replicating robot / factory / 3d-printer, a potentially new form of life

kevincox 5y ago

The title should probably be "Introducing Intrinsic" to match the source and be much more meaningful.

gopalv 5y ago
Not just that. > I’m now leading Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company > After five and a half years developing our technology at X, we’re now ready to become an independent Alphabet company, leaving the moonshot factory’s rapid prototyping environment If you don't know what "X" in Alphabet/Google is, then this announcement looks a little vague and confusing, not like the skunkworks unveil it is supposed to be.
- dang 5y ago
  Ok, we've added the Alphabet above.

geodel 5y ago

Nothing says serious business more than a Medium post.

dang 5y ago
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

soheil 5y ago

This is a Google company.

nostromo 5y ago
This was a helpful comment when it was made. Downvoters should know that the original title didn’t mention Alphabet or Google; that was added later.

nodejs_rulez_1 5y ago

So they are scripting Kuka robots effectively? Well, actually if they do some AI stuff that might be impressive. I guess stationary robots are seen as less of a reputational risk in comparison with Boston Robotics nighmares.

thesausageking 5y ago

> "when I was just starting Moonfruit, the world’s first SAAS website builder" Moonfruit, launched in 2000, was definitely not the first SaaS website builder. Geocities launched 6 years before it and there were dozens of them by the time Moonfruit came around. While not a big lie, it's an odd way to start a post like this.

z3ncyberpunk 5y ago
Not odd at all, it's standard startup delusion trying to chase clout
sp332 5y ago
Geocities was free and didn't really provide any "software" in the service. It was a static web host.
- srhngpr 5y ago
  Geocities had a WYSIWYG website builder, so yes there was some software involved. It's how I learned how to build my first website when I was 12.
galdosdi 5y ago
Funnily enough, one of those dozens of examples hits close to home here: A main source of the original fortune that funded the creation of YC and thus Hacker News was the $49m sale to Yahoo! of Viaweb, a SaaS website builder (focused on ecommerce) founded by Paul Graham, Trevor Blackwell, and Robert Morris in 1995.

eurasiantiger 5y ago

But how can robots be used to harvest personal data? Maybe this is an end-use case.

warkdarrior 5y ago
At this point personal data is irrelevant, the new goal is for robots to harvest persons directly.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jmeister 5y ago
  Quite a modest proposal.
411111111111111 5y ago
It's the most effective Trojan horse if they actually succeed in general robotics. Currently the amount of people using Google home is tiny. But imagine if you can just say "Google, make me a sandwich" and a few moments later the robot comes along.... And the automatic cleanup etc. People would buy them instantly, giving Google all the private data of households which would have never bought any of the current "smart assistants" I'm pretty sure that household robotics is going to be the by far most profitable field if general robotics is ever achieved, as literally all households will want one, just like a washing machine.
- eurasiantiger 5y ago
  The problem with household robotics is that people who have the dough for the maid-bot probably own stuff way too expensive to have it cleaned by a robot. The Lusty Automaton Maid, on the other hand, is sure to sell like botcakes.
code_duck 5y ago
The Roomba sure is good at (pardon me) sucking up personal data.

nieksand 5y ago

Google owned Boston Dynamics at one point. I'm curious what made them flip flop back to robotics again.

genericone 5y ago
Promising generalized solutions that apply to the physical world from advances at DeepMind (AlphaFold) perhaps?
rhacker 5y ago
BD seems like it's mostly interesting in creating dogs. This new thing seems like it's a generic robot for making objects.
- FunnyLookinHat 5y ago
  That was certainly the perception I used to have, but this demo video changed my mind. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn3KWM1kuAw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn3KWM1kuAw
  - gerash 5y ago
    BD focus has been mainly on control and locomotion whereas what Goog wants is neural net-ification of perception and control altogether.
jcims 5y ago
These are complementary developments, Boston Dynamics is building robots that excel at navigating the world in the way its built. This seems to be intent on building robots that excel at interacting with the world in the way it wants. The latter has a much broader customer base. From picking fruits to folding shirts to installing a headliner into a new vehicle, there are many applications.
duped 5y ago
X has done a lot of robotics projects. Boston dynamics wasn't Alphabet's only attempt.

csours 5y ago

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.

eloff 5y ago
Probably both, to the extent that it's practical.
- csours 5y ago
  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?
falcor84 5y ago
I'd say invest in the former, as having better robot control schemes should allow you to more easily iterate on different design alternatives
klysm 5y ago
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.
Animats 5y ago
That's a very interesting question. Apple was once into design for assembly. The Macintosh IIci was Apple's peak at design for assembly. It was designed for vertical assembly. Everything clicks into place with a straight-down insertion move. No wiring harnesses. The power supply plugs into the motherboard. An automated plant in Fremont CA did the assembly. Then Apple gave up on design for assembly and went to offshoring and cheap labor. Motorola flip phones were designed for automated assembly. All parts were on boards, and the boards were stacked and compressed into a solid block, with bumps on the boards making connections to the next layer. A tough, reliable phone resulted. Then Motorola gave up and went to offshoring and cheap labor. Sony pioneered this approach. The Sony Walkman,, the original tape unit with motors and contra-rotating flywheels, was built for vertical assembly and assembled by a simple Cartesian robot. Then came the iPod.

yellow_lead 5y ago

Funnily, their scroll capture is totally broken on their website [1] at least on my version of Firefox. Also, it's strange that they don't have their own website when they're a separate company. I guess it shows the ephemeral nature of these projects. [1] https://x.company/projects/intrinsic/ https://x.company/projects/intrinsic/

jasonvorhe 5y ago
Because, uhm, it's one of multiple projects? See: https://x.company/projects/ https://x.company/projects/
- yellow_lead 5y ago
  Right, they seem like a project not a company. I suppose they can put in a request to have Alphabet fix the website, they may not have the autonomy for that themselves.
dEnigma 5y ago
Wow, you're right. At least on Linux with Firefox 90.0.2 scrolling with the mouse wheel moves the page by such huge steps that it's basically unusable. Had to navigate with the arrow keys instead.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

baq 5y ago

i might be willing to free up my garage for a laundry folding robot

amelius 5y ago
I'm freeing up my garage for a robot that knits me a new set of clothes every day.
munificent 5y ago
If you pay me as much as it would cost to buy one of these robots, I'll come fold your laundry for you. I'll make "beep boop" sounds at no extra cost.

motohagiography 5y ago

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 https://unitylist.com/p/2id/walking-ai ) to reasoning about it in terms of actuators and physical feedback, to assembling a physical model out of a relatively small list of parts seems like a solvable engineering problem when it is broken out into a pipeline. Those robot parts are basically a version of mechano with actuators that a model would map a behavior to, and the robots in the article would assemble them. When you look at something like Lego or Mechano as an intermediate representation to construct buildings out of, where all objects made from it are essentially a directed graph of those elements, robots designing and building robots seems like less than 20 years away. e.g. we could functionally specify to an ML model, "produce a digraph of these element parts that has these degrees of freedom, and then load or derive a model that solves for this outcome within the domain of those degrees, where outcome is 'plug cables into a board' "

neltnerb 5y ago
https://www.mujin.co.jp/en/ 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 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.
- taldo 5y ago
  The few Mujin videos I watched look a lot like PCB assembly pick-n-place machines. A little bit of computer vision, a little sensing here and there, but overall fairly simple pre-programmed moves, on a pretty controlled environment.

ccchapman 5y ago

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.

lbhdc 5y ago
Weird, its loading fine in firefox for desktop and mobile for me.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- johndough 5y ago
  Do you mean the blog? That works for me as well, but scrolling on https://x.company https://x.company is broken.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
davidholdeman 5y ago
Same here. One detent of the scroll wheel and it's 2/3 of the way down the page. I tried disabling smooth scrolling, but that didn't fix it. Note that we're talking about the home page, x.company, not the page linked.
- rhizome 5y ago
  They only hire the best of the best!
neogodless 5y ago
Took me a bit to get to the web site, since I was lost in Medium land for a while, but there's an unlinked text-only "www.x.company" at the bottom I could copy/paste. But yeah scroll speed is ludicrous!
5y ago

htrp 5y ago

It seem that this company is doing more of the middleware and higher level interfaces/adding intelligence to industrial robots than they are trying to build their own robots (Google tried that at least 3 times and failed). Anecdotally, I've heard that FANUCs don't respond well at all to any input deviation.

themodelplumber 5y ago
That's similar to the way you could say the founder's startup Moonfruit which launched back in 2000 was more about producing Flash SWF files than websites. Maybe the model has some traction for a group of people who find that sort of help applicable or not harmful to their own business model.

falcor84 5y ago

>...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?

extropy 5y ago
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.
- falcor84 5y ago
  >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
  - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    Yep, people will do all the jobs.... even hard, shitty jobs... just not for minimum wage.
  - downWidOutaFite 5y ago
    The other implication is that the US is unwilling to take advantage of the millions of people that want to immigrate here.
    - downWidOutaFite 5y ago
      I'm guessing this comment got down voted because Americans are against immigration in general. But whether its a good idea or not the fact remains that our desirability as a place to live could be used to satisfy any labor shortage.
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    Or that Americans aren't willing to work for the prevailing global wage that manufacturing workers demand. Why would any company keep manufacturing here when labor is so expensive? Effective manufacturing robots would allow manufacturing to move back to the us.

amirhirsch 5y ago

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.

IshKebab 5y ago
I agree, and the cost. Automation hardware is just fundamentally really really expensive. I guess part of that is due to the small market, but I'm a bit skeptical that they will ever bring robot arms to the masses just because robot arms are super expensive. The ability to plug in cables and whatnot looks like a useful ability but I'm guessing this will just be sort of like really good traditional robotic control software rather than anything really fundamentally different.

xor99 5y ago

Robotics is not a software problem and SV companies bias is towards software development (a little different with X but still apparent). I think most companies that try to throw data at existing problems in robotics using existing machines will have a hard time matching human efficiency. For example, in something as straightforward as the usb insertion task. Hardware and mechanical is like 95% of the problem so there's a need to take the approach of making the machines that make and then add the software on top and developing synthetic task orientated data from that. E.g. the dishwasher, which works because its physically designed for washing plates and then automation was added. The robot arm is a general purpose technology that has been around in the same form since the 60s/70s. There are many options as alternatives (e.g. magnetic assembly or even self-assembly in certain industries) but ofc these are incredibly risky commercially. I'm aware that this is just the first post and the above is well known in robotics development so excited to see what gets built!

YetAnotherNick 5y ago
But it is a software problem. Surprised that you mentioned robotic arm, which is basically just 3-5 servo/stepper motors connected to case and not super complicated to build with 3d printers. It's the software that powers it. Boston dynamics robots are not the top of the line in terms of hardware. It is the software that gives their robot the power to even stand up, which anyone who has coded the robot knows it only looks easy.
- glitchc 5y ago
  Why does it have to be servos in the first place? A very narrow way to think of robotics. Boston Dynamics is more about the hw than the sw.
- gopalv 5y ago
  > But it is a software problem. There is a software authoring problem (which is where the ML bits are crucial). If we had to program all robots like we had to with CNC machines, then programming them would be a high skill problem, even if we throw a lot of tools at it. I can work my way through a Tormach, but is that really what I want to spend time with? The ultra low level specification of what I need done? I'd love a pedal based training system with something like "Identify", "Orient", "Place", "Count", "Test" to teach it things in steps & get a program out of the demonstration (that donut computer vision project was amazing, because it showed you didn't really need ML to do these things). Like we have people who are demonstration learners, I wish I could do something like that of going from many scenarios to a final one and have the robot to dissect every one of my actions into a flow-chart of its own.

tofuahdude 5y ago

What is the point of the first paragraph?

truthwhisperer 5y ago

you are becoming evil

aazaa 5y ago

> Back in the late 90s when I was just starting Moonfruit, the world’s first SAAS website builder, creating your own website was hard. From setting up your own server, to working with an ISP, to getting a content delivery network and integrating a middleware layer to communicate with your computer, to design and UX — creating a website was a lengthy multi-step process that was only accessible to a small group of technical experts or large companies. It wasn’t until websites were simple and easy to make that the full creative and business potential of the web really began to blossom. It's not good that this introductory post doesn't start right off with a problem to be solved. Instead it presents the credentials of the current leader. If I had to pick out the problem, it would be this sentence, contained in the fourth paragraph: > Currently just 10 countries manufacture 70% of the world’s goods. In the fifth paragraph, we get a more clear phrasing of the problem: > The surprisingly manual and bespoke process of teaching robots how to do things, which hasn’t changed much over the last few decades, is currently a cap on their potential to help more businesses. Ok, so this is going to be a company that solves the problem of poor usability of industrial robots through machine learning. The larger goal is to put manufacturing capacity closer to consumers for better sustainability.

MattRix 5y ago
The purpose of the first paragraph is not to present the credentials of the leader. The purpose is to make a parallel between the current state of the robotics industry and the creative & commercial expansion of the web once the technology became more accessible.
- aazaa 5y ago
  I'm saying it doesn't work as a paragraph to do that. The article makes the reader work to figure out what this thing is.

Animats 5y ago

Nice. Here's much the same job, being done almost 50 years ago, by a robot at the Stanford AI lab.[1] This robot has both vision and force feedback, and uses them to assemble an automotive water pump. It does the coarse alignment visually, and the fine alignment by feel. [1] https://archive.org/details/sailfilm_pump https://archive.org/details/sailfilm_pump

amelius 5y ago
I'm still waiting for a robot that can assemble a LEGO model from a pile of Legos.
- arkitaip 5y ago
  Probably faster and easier to get offspring who can do it for you.
  - dcolkitt 5y ago
    Make sure to initialize with random weights
    - MerrilyX5 5y ago
      tabula random weights is an interesting way to think about it
- bombcar 5y ago
  https://www.wired.com/2010/10/legobot/ https://www.wired.com/2010/10/legobot/
  - amelius 5y ago
    Thanks for the link. It seems to me that this is rather specialized, and would run into trouble with designs that have a very small base. Also, the number of parts is limited. Imho, this is closer to a printer than to a general model assembly robot.

tus89 5y ago

I have always wanted a robot to plug the HDMI cable into my TV. Life will never be the same.

lifeisstillgood 5y ago

To me, this is robot vs process - how much do we need clever robots and how much do we need to change the job. There is an old saw about the transition from steam powered factories to electrical power. Initially the large steam engine was in one location, and basically its power was delivered by belts running off one central location. The factories initially tried to replace the steam engine with one big electric motor, and it worked ok but the factory was still a hub and spoke and pieces had to be moved from one spoke to the next. It was not until a new generation of factories were built with many motors at any point in the factory that the modern line was built. Of course this is a massive simplification, but I look at two robots using 10 m2 to assemble some Ikea cabinet, and think "awesome geekery" but if you want a factory producing pre-made furniture go back at least three-steps. Robots that can replace a human arm in the assembly process just feel like we are replacing that big steam engine in the middle of the factory. And, yes industrial robots is where you start, of course. But a factory can change its process to eliminate the need for a general purpose robot. But the home - that's a different story. * Take up two "normal" sizes of a washing machine. A hopper accepts clothes, sorts them using RFID tags, and begins a run in a smaller drum, spins, dries and folds them. (yes, its probably magic but this would be on everyone's XMAS list) * (completely foregoing everything I just said) a mobile robot arm that can learn where each item in a house belongs. 3D tracking, ML etc, and it picks up the toys my kids have left lying around. * I am not sure where the "robot" vs "process" sits here, but food purchase and prep is a large time sink for many, but there seems to be a viable disintermediation of supermarkets - I mean if i choose a decent set of meals for a week, why send the food to the supermarket so it can use its shelves as a collection point to send it on to me. And if the food is picked so i get "nice meal on Saturday" plus "something with the extra Tues lunch" I think there is a real possibility of robots making the middle class home like a B&B. As Jerry Hall said, "My Mother told me if I wanted to keep a man I needed to be a Chef in the Kitchen, a Maid in the living room and a Whore in the bedroom. I said I would hire the first two and take care of the rest myself." Edit: honestly I am not trying to be HN-negative, and I think all this investment is only going to build better robots. Which is a win. But I remain under-convinced that building general-purpose robots to replace general-purpose humans, when humans are already having the easy bits replaced by specific purpose robots is a good idea - it feels like running uphill.

okareaman 5y ago

I really dislike this writing structure of "before I get to the point, let me tell you a story about my life" Edit: I'm not alone, https://style.mla.org/dont-bury-the-lede/ https://style.mla.org/dont-bury-the-lede/

jszymborski 5y ago
Maybe I'm off base here, as it's no small feat by any means, but it's especially jarring to read when "first-website-building-SaaS" has so little to do with industrial robotics at its surface.
- ManBlanket 5y ago
  I had a similar impression. It was jarring to say the least and made me ask so many questions that had nothing to do with the story. Does this person lead every tech related conversation with, "When I was the CEO of Moonbeans, the world's first SAAS blockchain beanbag chair crowd sourcing platform" just to buy some credibility? Why do they feel the need to tell us that? Do they have inadequacy issues or is it the opposite? I can barely remember what that article was about. Robotics? Oh, right, shame it's an Alphabet subsidiary. It's bound to end up in the Google graveyard when it fails to be one of the top 10 most profitable companies in the world. Even if they do great things and make a great product, it's the fate which will inevitably follow most of Alphabet's projects until the SEC breaks them up, this being one of many good reasons.
lanewinfield 5y ago
You will not be a fan of recipe blogs anywhere on the internet.
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
  Those have gotten way worse. It’s an SEO thing right?
  - loa_in_ 5y ago

armatav 5y ago

The last GIF is Portal

Workaccount2 5y ago

If you can't program it by directly showing it what to do, throw it in the bin. They probably intend for it to be SaaS too, effectively having you pay a workers wage for a truly terrible worker. You're competing with general intelligence robots that cost $12 - $15/hr. That's 10 years of full time labor for $300,000. No shot. This looks like something designed to attract ignorant investors/talent who think small time manufacturing looks like a Ford plant but with less robots and more humans. In reality it looks something closer to Grandma's kitchen on Thanksgiving. How are you gonna stick a robot in there and have Uncle Fred program it? I can't see this as anything other than a flashy high school engineering project. Much wow! little application. Source: Work in domestic manufacturing. <$50 million company. Mostly do government/military electronics building.

justicezyx 5y ago
When you are working on domestic manufacturing, what automation you have? How much of that is programmed by human (in house and from vendor?) This is definitely far from mass adoption. But somewhere certain expensive product might benefit from this. Guess: mechanical watch assembly, given the amount of manual labor, and the claimed learning ability, it seems possible for a robot to assemble a 1milions worth of Swiss watch.
danield9tqh 5y ago
Assuming 8hr work days and a 250 day working year for humans. No such constraints for robots. That's 2,000 hrs/yr for a human vs 8,760 (assuming 24/7) hours for a robot. Obviously there will be other costs for robots (downtime, electricity, repair etc) so no telling whether it will be worth it in the long run but the hour calculation there does seem a little off.

fredliu 5y ago

It's interesting at a time OpenAI dropped its robotics branch...

jacobmischka 5y ago

Off topic: Wow, X's main website[1] is infuriating. The scrolling is very janky with a touchpad, and the carousel at the bottom of the page which highlights projects in a timeline advances way too fast to read it comfortably, and there isn't any obvious way to pause on a slide. Shame, because I was actually interested in learning more about their projects. [1]: https://x.company https://x.company

i386 5y ago

I’m “unlocking” that this will be dead within 18 months. It will get too hard and bored engineers will head back to Google Corp where the promotion game is better. I’m in manufacturing. Machinery is highly specialised. Making a generic robot without taking up huge amount of floor space and/or huge leaps in programming is like… Kubernetes being good for hosting your moms book club blog.

danieldisu 5y ago
I'll remind myself in 2 years to see the state of this
- kybishop 5y ago
  Given that this is Google, my money is on them either abandoning it, or making a new version every 2-3 years (for no discernable reason) making no actual progress as a result. I would LOVE to be proven wrong, but Google's track record with bringing products to market, and actually keeping them for longer than a media boost, is downright depressing. At some point it feels like every Google side project is just a media buy for their real business: hiring engineers to drive more ad revenue, engineers who are enticed by shiny projects like these.
  - foobiekr 5y ago
    It’s not depressing, it’s wonderful. Google’s abject failure in almost every area is great. They have nearly unlimited resources and a fantastic (though but as great as they think) engineering pool. It would suck if they managed to successfully attack adjacencies.
    - kybishop 5y ago
      I have a hard time calling immense wastes of resources "wonderful". Think of how many man-hours of at least better-than-average engineers have been wasted developing something like 5 separate chat apps... it's absurd.
5y ago

NelsonMinar 5y ago

The domain name reminds me of x.com, Elon Musk's 1999 company that became PayPal. It was one of only 3 single letter .com domains. I have a memory that its issuance was a mistake or some sort of strange deal but I can't find any evidence for that now.

jliptzin 5y ago

How is it possible that we don’t have robots to do very basic household tasks such as fold laundry by now?

morcheeba 5y ago
I currently have a robot washing my clothes, another robot washing my dishes, a third robot vacuuming my floors. Cybernetic systems adjust the temperature in my house and water my lawn. I even have a little robot I keep in the freezer to make ice cubes while I sleep. So, two answers - 1. folding laundry is a difficult technical challenge. 2. when we get a robot to do that task, we won't call it a robot.
- Twixes 5y ago
  My quick test for a robot would be: does it have at least one appendage-like part performing a task? A washing machine has nothing like that, but a Kuka robot practically is a programmable arm, and Boston Dynamics robots have legs.
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  If it has an arm sort of thing doing it, we very well may. If your drying machine had an arm putting clothing up on pins in your backyard vs being a box you dump clothing into, we’d likely call it a robot. Some people do refer to automatic vacuums and other things that move automatically robots too.
IshKebab 5y ago
Because folding laundry is extremely difficult for robots, easy for humans and people are not willing to pay much money or give up much space for a laundry folding robot.
dimatura 5y ago
This reminds me of a Louis CK bit, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBtKNzoKZ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBtKNzoKZ4. Folding laundry (and more generally, manipulating deformable objects) is actually a pretty tough task for robots. So there has been some research on it, and you can find videos of robots doing it (very slowly). I guess we'll get there eventually, but right now even if it's possible, it's not at a level of speed, robustness and cost where it makes sense.

simsla 5y ago

TL;DR: making industrial (e.g. manufacturing) robots easier to use, by improving sensing, planning, etc. I suspect that Dr. Chelsea Finn's work in meta-learning (affiliated with Stanford and GBrain, when I saw it last year) might play a big part here, which is e.a. about generalisation of RL policies to out of domain tasks. (E.g. similar task, but slightly different tools, slightly different task, etc.) Learning IRL (cameras and actuators) reinforcement learning policies is a huge time sink, so generalisation is a hugely important task. Related solutions can be found in simulation->real generalisation, also an active topic of research.

marmada 5y ago

I notice a lot of pessimism -- presumably at some point someone is going to build much better robots than the ones we have today. (Surely we are not anywhere close to the end game of robotics). I'm inclined to believe Google, with all of its resources, has as good a shot as any.

fouc 5y ago

from the name Intrinsic I thought it was gonna be mainly about inserting chips into the brain. Perhaps the robotics is the first step.

allo37 5y ago

I used to work a bit with industrial robots and I found the biggest issue wasn't a lack of innovative technology but how hard it was to access: Everything was an expensive "option", the programming languages and tools were dinosaurs, and documentation was treated like some kind of sacred text, only for the eyes of the exalted. Maybe with a "software" approach to this we'll see better and more open tools.

robertwt7 5y ago

Robotics.. After machine learning and crypto era, we've come to robotics era.. Soon, terminator baby

nazrulmum10 5y ago

Over the last few years, our team has been exploring how to give industrial robots the ability to sense, learn, and automatically make adjustments as they’re completing tasks, so they work in a wider range of settings and applications. Working in collaboration with teams across Alphabet, and with our partners in real-world manufacturing settings, we’ve been testing software that uses techniques like automated perception, deep learning, reinforcement learning, motion planning, simulation, and force control.

xyst 5y ago

Intrinsic reminds me of Hooli,xyz