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robotics really needs to do most of its compute at the edge, on robot Why can't you hook your robot up to a GPU cluster? Tesla already has 7k+ A100 GPUs, the q

by p1esk 4y ago

robotics really needs to do most of its compute at the edge, on robot Why can't you hook your robot up to a GPU cluster? Tesla already has 7k+ A100 GPUs, the question is do they have algorithms which would clearly work better if only we could run them on 70k or 700k GPUs? I mean, what you say makes sense, but have people actually tried all that and realized they need bigger GPU clusters? Is there a GPT-3 equivalent model in robotics which would probably work better if we scaled it up? If not, perhaps they should start with a small proof of concept before asking for thousands of GPUs. Original Transformer --> GPT1 --> GPT2 --> GPT3.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago
The problem with this is that autonomous robots need to function in the real world even without internet connectivity. For example I am designing a solar powered farming robot. We do have Wi-Fi and starlink here but Wi-Fi and internet go down. In general we think it makes most sense for it to be able to operate completely without a continuous internet connection. And take self driving cars where millisecond response times matter - those can’t rely on a continuous connection to function or someone will get killed. But as systems get more advanced it is my opinion that edge compute will be an important function. And edge compute can’t handle the state of the art networks that people are building for even text processing, let alone complete autonomous AGI. And no, the models I’m talking about don’t exist yet, I am speculating on what I think will be required based on how I see things. But I’m not asking for thousands of GPUs. I’m just speculating in internet comments about what robotics will need for a fully embodied AGI to function. I believe more edge compute power is needed. Perhaps 1000x more power than the Nvidia Orin edge compute for robotics today.
- p1esk 4y ago
  Sure, I understand the need for the robot autonomy. The problem, as I see it, is that current robots (autonomous or not) suck. They suck primarily because we don't have good algorithms. Without such algorithms or models, it does not matter whether a robot is autonomous or not, or how much processing power it has. Only after we have the algorithms, the other issues you mentioned might become relevant. Finally, it's not clear yet if we need more compute than what's currently available (e.g. at Tesla) to develop the algorithms. p.s. I don't think AGI is needed for robotics. I suspect that even an ant's level of intelligence (together with existing ML algorithms) might be enough for robots to do almost all the tasks we might want them to do today. It's ironic that robots today can see, read, speak, understand spoken commands, drive a car (more or less), play simple video games, and do a lot of other cool stuff, but still can't walk around an apartment without falling or getting stuck, do laundry, wash dishes, or cook food.

by p1esk 4y ago

TaylorAlexander 4y ago

The problem with this is that autonomous robots need to function in the real world even without internet connectivity. For example I am designing a solar powered farming robot. We do have Wi-Fi and starlink here but Wi-Fi and internet go down. In general we think it makes most sense for it to be able to operate completely without a continuous internet connection. And take self driving cars where millisecond response times matter - those can’t rely on a continuous connection to function or someone will get killed. But as systems get more advanced it is my opinion that edge compute will be an important function. And edge compute can’t handle the state of the art networks that people are building for even text processing, let alone complete autonomous AGI. And no, the models I’m talking about don’t exist yet, I am speculating on what I think will be required based on how I see things. But I’m not asking for thousands of GPUs. I’m just speculating in internet comments about what robotics will need for a fully embodied AGI to function. I believe more edge compute power is needed. Perhaps 1000x more power than the Nvidia Orin edge compute for robotics today.

p1esk 4y ago
Sure, I understand the need for the robot autonomy. The problem, as I see it, is that current robots (autonomous or not) suck. They suck primarily because we don't have good algorithms. Without such algorithms or models, it does not matter whether a robot is autonomous or not, or how much processing power it has. Only after we have the algorithms, the other issues you mentioned might become relevant. Finally, it's not clear yet if we need more compute than what's currently available (e.g. at Tesla) to develop the algorithms. p.s. I don't think AGI is needed for robotics. I suspect that even an ant's level of intelligence (together with existing ML algorithms) might be enough for robots to do almost all the tasks we might want them to do today. It's ironic that robots today can see, read, speak, understand spoken commands, drive a car (more or less), play simple video games, and do a lot of other cool stuff, but still can't walk around an apartment without falling or getting stuck, do laundry, wash dishes, or cook food.