6 ms·

Via simulation + meta-learning they can make a blind robot walk over arbitrary terrains solely via proprioception. They add a visual component, which with 30 m

Via simulation + meta-learning they can make a blind robot walk over arbitrary terrains solely via proprioception. They add a visual component, which with 30 minutes of real world data, through a technique called Cross-Modal Supervision (CMS), is able to improve walking performance significantly! They can even distort its vision (turn the camera) and it learns to adapt! Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.03785 https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.03785 Advisor Presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6fDpKDxpL0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6fDpKDxpL0 Note: This is not my work; I originally found the presentation above.

EGreg 4y ago
When one robot learns, millions of them learn When millions of cars learn, they all can send data back to the mothership which crunches the numbers and they all improve Even without AI, this is how technology has always advanced. Humans simply improved things and copied it to all the implementations. So basically, when it comes to competing with robots or software, it is a losing proposition in the long run. No biological animal can evolve faster than this.
- labster 4y ago
  And yet our politicians ban human cloning and designer babies. Along with climate change, it’s like our politicians want human extinction.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    The same hubris behind "let's clone humans" brought climate change. And the development of AGI is a similar self-destruct bet. The extinction will be premised on those things being allowed, not on them being banned.
    - vt85 4y ago
      [dead]
    - andsoitis 4y ago
      building on your thinking... what if humans are merely a point on an unfurling of intelligence/hacking, which will eventually reach its natural end, as all things do? just like the universe will as well; it couldn't foresee how its processes will yield its end
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        We don't exactly know the nature of 'The Great Filter'. But maybe we'll find out.
      - coldtea 4y ago
        Sure, but what about it? As the member of a species being extinct, I wouldn't like it and just "roll with it". Same way a race being told that they're there to serve, and if needed, be extinct to bring forward some other entity wouldn't. Until we reach that "natural end" we shouldn't go "gently into that good night".
        andsoitis 4y ago
        > we shouldn't go "gently into that good night concur. the challenge in front of us (and always has been) to surf the waves we can find in this universe
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    One of me is quite enough.
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      It's not you that I'm particularly worried about. It's Bill Gates VII and Elon Musk XIV that I'm worried about.
      - p1esk 4y ago
        Not the worst people to have more of.
        jacquesm 4y ago
        I strongly disagree with that.
        p1esk 4y ago
        Oh, so you would rather clone Hitler and Stalin than Musk and Gates?
        jkestner 4y ago
        Why not neither?
        jacquesm 4y ago
        That's got to be the mother of all false dichotomies.
        ben_w 4y ago
        Godwin aside, the point is valid. When I look at Musk? Sure, he's overrated, acts like a nerdy teenager who never grew up — "Rockets are cool! Sports cars are cool! I know, I'll put a sports car on a rocket!" — but even where I think he's surrounded himself with sycophants (IMO Boring Company, Neuralink, based purely on what I'm told by civil engineers and brain scientists) not really evil. Misaligned and powerful, so an easy example of how an AI can go wrong; but you don't have to reach for Auschwitz or the Holodomor to find people much worse to clone than him. As for Gates? The worst true thing I've heard about him was Internet Explorer. And possibly Clippy.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  Borgdom awaits
- ChatGTP 4y ago
  No biological animal can evolve faster than this. What’s the point of evolution for something which isn’t alive and has no will to live and no environment that it really needs to be part of for survival? I think about this when we talk about bots that continually improve? Continually improve to where ? To what end ? I’m asking out of curiosity not out of malice btw, it’s just an interesting thing to think about. I’m hoping that we eventually realise that life is pretty awesome albeit slower and learn that even a bird is really an amazing thing.
  - muyuu 4y ago
    There is no point to evolution in the technical sense of the word. Evolution is just a dynamic. Dynamics don't seek purpose. The thing that makes evolution a special dynamic is that everything that exists and you get to perceive is either the result of evolution, or compatible with it. Will to life is effectively an artifact of evolution. Things with ways to express some form of persistence and reproduction have an implicit will to live. Leaving aside whatever goals AIs may be programmed for, if at some point a dynamic for persistence and reproduction appears it will dominate any competing systems that don't have it on that basis alone. Systems that incorporate and propagate useful features for their survival will have capabilities to adapt and persist that are very limited in known lifeforms.
    - ChatGTP 4y ago
      This is assuming that evolving at 1 million times faster than other life is actually possible or advantageous. There may actually be a reason why faster != better. Of course there is a point to evolution, which is to utilise the environment to preserve your genes and pass them onto the next generation. Evolve to slow though and you die, evolve too fast, you’re no longer compatible with your environment and also die.
      - ben_w 4y ago
        Bacteria can reproduce in about 30 minutes, I think. That's in the order of 1,000,000 times faster than a human. As I'm not a biologist, I would only be guessing if that corresponds to evolving 1 million times faster, or if the relative complexity of the organisms makes it either more or less than that.
- csomar 4y ago
  > No biological animal can evolve faster than this. Are you sure? The robot is limited by its gears. However, animals have cells that can adapt and change through a super sophisticated mechanism called DNA. We are still way far from reaching living organisms complexity. All stuff we make is very fragile compared to that. Once we are able to modify real humans, you'll know we have the real deal.
  - totetsu 4y ago
    Also Bios have millions of years of pre-trained reservoir DNA to put into use as/when needed.
    - fennecfoxy 4y ago
      I'd say that usually holds us back more than anything else. Pretty much 99.99% of crime is related to our evolutionary process, imo. The edge cases of mentally ill people etc are low, but otherwise racist/homophobic/theft crimes are all just tribalism/being afraid of the other/resource contention at the end of the day; society and its rules are just a patch on top of millennia of forming small groups and marching over to hit other neighbouring small groups with rocks. Sentient life would be both impressive & scary in that it can theoretically optimise itself far, far beyond what we can. Then again it could go the other way too: aggressive nanobots that start disassembling humans getting into tribal-like wars with other groups of nanobots to fight over resources aka humans to melt down.
    - psychoslave 4y ago
      What is preventing robots to incorporate all that information in their own models?
      - totetsu 4y ago
        Its all undocumented legacy code?
  - cryptonector 4y ago
    > The robot is limited by its gears. Wait till they hook up the robots to other robots including 3D printers.
- Rhapso 4y ago
  > No biological animal can evolve faster than this. Sure one does. Us. When one human learns something, they communicate about it and often, they all do. As always, robotics and automation doesn't enable any fundimental new capacity other than what required many humans to do, now requires less humans to do. This just gives more control to the humans who own the robots. The AGI apocalypse is just the fear that capitalist entities and morales will spread and grow faster than humans can compete with. AI already exists to further their reach. We already have profit maximizing paperclip runaway super intelligence. We call them tech companies, and they flounder occasionally but they learn and adapt efficiently enough.

EGreg 4y ago

When one robot learns, millions of them learn When millions of cars learn, they all can send data back to the mothership which crunches the numbers and they all improve Even without AI, this is how technology has always advanced. Humans simply improved things and copied it to all the implementations. So basically, when it comes to competing with robots or software, it is a losing proposition in the long run. No biological animal can evolve faster than this.

labster 4y ago
And yet our politicians ban human cloning and designer babies. Along with climate change, it’s like our politicians want human extinction.
- coldtea 4y ago
  The same hubris behind "let's clone humans" brought climate change. And the development of AGI is a similar self-destruct bet. The extinction will be premised on those things being allowed, not on them being banned.
  - vt85 4y ago
    [dead]
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    building on your thinking... what if humans are merely a point on an unfurling of intelligence/hacking, which will eventually reach its natural end, as all things do? just like the universe will as well; it couldn't foresee how its processes will yield its end
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      We don't exactly know the nature of 'The Great Filter'. But maybe we'll find out.
    - coldtea 4y ago
      Sure, but what about it? As the member of a species being extinct, I wouldn't like it and just "roll with it". Same way a race being told that they're there to serve, and if needed, be extinct to bring forward some other entity wouldn't. Until we reach that "natural end" we shouldn't go "gently into that good night".
      - andsoitis 4y ago
        > we shouldn't go "gently into that good night concur. the challenge in front of us (and always has been) to surf the waves we can find in this universe
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  One of me is quite enough.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    It's not you that I'm particularly worried about. It's Bill Gates VII and Elon Musk XIV that I'm worried about.
    - p1esk 4y ago
      Not the worst people to have more of.
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        I strongly disagree with that.
        p1esk 4y ago
        Oh, so you would rather clone Hitler and Stalin than Musk and Gates?
        jkestner 4y ago
        Why not neither?
        jacquesm 4y ago
        That's got to be the mother of all false dichotomies.
        ben_w 4y ago
        Godwin aside, the point is valid. When I look at Musk? Sure, he's overrated, acts like a nerdy teenager who never grew up — "Rockets are cool! Sports cars are cool! I know, I'll put a sports car on a rocket!" — but even where I think he's surrounded himself with sycophants (IMO Boring Company, Neuralink, based purely on what I'm told by civil engineers and brain scientists) not really evil. Misaligned and powerful, so an easy example of how an AI can go wrong; but you don't have to reach for Auschwitz or the Holodomor to find people much worse to clone than him. As for Gates? The worst true thing I've heard about him was Internet Explorer. And possibly Clippy.
andsoitis 4y ago
Borgdom awaits
ChatGTP 4y ago
No biological animal can evolve faster than this. What’s the point of evolution for something which isn’t alive and has no will to live and no environment that it really needs to be part of for survival? I think about this when we talk about bots that continually improve? Continually improve to where ? To what end ? I’m asking out of curiosity not out of malice btw, it’s just an interesting thing to think about. I’m hoping that we eventually realise that life is pretty awesome albeit slower and learn that even a bird is really an amazing thing.
- muyuu 4y ago
  There is no point to evolution in the technical sense of the word. Evolution is just a dynamic. Dynamics don't seek purpose. The thing that makes evolution a special dynamic is that everything that exists and you get to perceive is either the result of evolution, or compatible with it. Will to life is effectively an artifact of evolution. Things with ways to express some form of persistence and reproduction have an implicit will to live. Leaving aside whatever goals AIs may be programmed for, if at some point a dynamic for persistence and reproduction appears it will dominate any competing systems that don't have it on that basis alone. Systems that incorporate and propagate useful features for their survival will have capabilities to adapt and persist that are very limited in known lifeforms.
  - ChatGTP 4y ago
    This is assuming that evolving at 1 million times faster than other life is actually possible or advantageous. There may actually be a reason why faster != better. Of course there is a point to evolution, which is to utilise the environment to preserve your genes and pass them onto the next generation. Evolve to slow though and you die, evolve too fast, you’re no longer compatible with your environment and also die.
    - ben_w 4y ago
      Bacteria can reproduce in about 30 minutes, I think. That's in the order of 1,000,000 times faster than a human. As I'm not a biologist, I would only be guessing if that corresponds to evolving 1 million times faster, or if the relative complexity of the organisms makes it either more or less than that.
csomar 4y ago
> No biological animal can evolve faster than this. Are you sure? The robot is limited by its gears. However, animals have cells that can adapt and change through a super sophisticated mechanism called DNA. We are still way far from reaching living organisms complexity. All stuff we make is very fragile compared to that. Once we are able to modify real humans, you'll know we have the real deal.
- totetsu 4y ago
  Also Bios have millions of years of pre-trained reservoir DNA to put into use as/when needed.
  - fennecfoxy 4y ago
    I'd say that usually holds us back more than anything else. Pretty much 99.99% of crime is related to our evolutionary process, imo. The edge cases of mentally ill people etc are low, but otherwise racist/homophobic/theft crimes are all just tribalism/being afraid of the other/resource contention at the end of the day; society and its rules are just a patch on top of millennia of forming small groups and marching over to hit other neighbouring small groups with rocks. Sentient life would be both impressive & scary in that it can theoretically optimise itself far, far beyond what we can. Then again it could go the other way too: aggressive nanobots that start disassembling humans getting into tribal-like wars with other groups of nanobots to fight over resources aka humans to melt down.
  - psychoslave 4y ago
    What is preventing robots to incorporate all that information in their own models?
    - totetsu 4y ago
      Its all undocumented legacy code?
- cryptonector 4y ago
  > The robot is limited by its gears. Wait till they hook up the robots to other robots including 3D printers.
Rhapso 4y ago
> No biological animal can evolve faster than this. Sure one does. Us. When one human learns something, they communicate about it and often, they all do. As always, robotics and automation doesn't enable any fundimental new capacity other than what required many humans to do, now requires less humans to do. This just gives more control to the humans who own the robots. The AGI apocalypse is just the fear that capitalist entities and morales will spread and grow faster than humans can compete with. AI already exists to further their reach. We already have profit maximizing paperclip runaway super intelligence. We call them tech companies, and they flounder occasionally but they learn and adapt efficiently enough.