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I'm a researcher at Deepmind that contributed to these models. (And the opinions here are my own) Just want to say, Deepmind is a great place to work and the o
by canyon289 2mo ago
I'm a researcher at Deepmind that contributed to these models. (And the opinions here are my own)
Just want to say, Deepmind is a great place to work and the only (Edit: one the few unique labs!) lab where you can move from large frontier models (Gemini), frontier open models (Gemma), robotics (what you see here), science (weather, biology, more) and basically any other topic related to intelligence. It's really an incredible place to be, with incredible people. Consider joining! And thank you for the enthusiasm here.
- jauntywundrkind 2mo agoGood stuff, yay, good. I do want to pick a nit in this one, > and the only lab where I do think Allen Institution for AI (AI2) is has coverage across most of these domains ( albeit their frontier isn't nearly so far out, hopefully the $152m NSF awarded them + Nvidia is a fruitful partnership there). For example, robotics: MolmoBot, MolmoSpaces, MolmoAct, https://allenai.org/embodied-ai https://allenai.org/embodied-ai
- canyon289 2mo agoTotally fair and thank you for nit picking! I edited my comment. AI2 is doing amazing stuff, I read their papers and code all the time and appreciate how open they are.
- lewismenelaws 2mo agoCongrats! Awesome release! (can i have access)
- canyon289 2mo agoJoin the waitlist! It's in the blogpost
- AndrewKemendo 2mo agoHey Ravin, I’m executive director for AGI Society which has run the AGI conference (https://agi-conference.org/ https://agi-conference.org/) since 2007 We’d love to invite you to speak about your work next year at the AGI Conference if you’re open to it. Alexander Lerchner spoke this year and was great. I’ll reach out on email if you have a preferred one, it was unclear on your site which email you prefer.
- staplor 2mo agoWould you mind expanding on the difference between frontier model development and open model development? I was under the impression that they were nearly the same thing and would thus be handled by the same team. My impression is that open models tend to go through more safety testing and are generally smaller, but are otherwise the same thing. Shouldn't most of what is commonly referred to as 'AI research' be applicable to both?
- Razengan 2mo agoWhat are you doing to prevent abuses by governments, corporations and militaries? (non snarky question) How much of this technology is going to benefit and uplift the Common Peasant and how is going to be used for increasing surveillance and control?
- CaptWorld 2mo agoLol.. why do people ask employees this stuff as though they're the ones controlling big decisions?
- Razengan 2mo ago"Just following orders" is how some of the worst shit in human history went down. They're literally CREATING the tech and tools and you're saying don't even question them about potential and proven misuse?? lol They're the first people that should be asked this question.
- drusepth 2mo agoI don't think OP's "Why do people ask employees this stuff" question implies you _shouldn't_ ask, but rather wonders why people even ask when you're obviously not going to get an answer (and if you do, it'll be a non-answer filtered through PR/HR/MR/etc).
- CaptWorld 2mo agoThank you.. this was what I meant.
- Razengan 2mo agoWell they posted on a public forum and it wasn't a rude question or anything, in fact it's one of the hottest topics in the zeitgeist and here we have one of the people near the center of it. Right on the HN frontpage near this post: "Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year" NOT asking them the "taboo" questions is the dumb thing to do
- ceroxylon 2mo agoSo glad to see that you are still involved and have your inspiring enthusiasm! Meeting you was a huge inflection point in my journey with ML/AI.
- anonymid 2mo agoHow are you engaging with the fundamental problems explained in this blog post https://rodneybrooks.com/why-todays-humanoids-wont-learn-dexterity/ https://rodneybrooks.com/why-todays-humanoids-wont-learn-dex... - the relatively crude tactile and proprioceptive sensing apparatuses of robots when compared to humans - the limited availability of multisensory, perception-action coupled training data Genuinely curious!
- nl 2mo agoThis seems like a post by someone who hasn't really ingested the bitter lesson. Eg, even LeRobot (without proper fingers) can fold clothes now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPe9v4gqbdg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPe9v4gqbdg The labs are spending huge money collecting "multisensory, perception-action coupled training data" (eg, there is the one in NY that gives you free cleaning in return for video data from the cleaner). Edit: The Gemini Robotics blog post has a video of it tying knots too. That's pretty good.
- jhanschoo 2mo agoYou can point to the bitter lesson to support your claim, but on the other hand I can point to the massive investment in capital and time to get self-driving cars viable to support my more bearish view.
- AndrewKemendo 2mo agoYesterday evening I rode 12 miles in a Waymo actively dodging pedestrians and obstacles dynamically in an open ended environment. Multiples better experience than the two Ubers I had later that evening. What are you bearish about precisely?
- qsera 2mo agoIt is amusing to observe that the tech marketing of today are milking the shit out of this trick. The trick being to tread continuously through some non-obvious happy path. And average people will be convinced that you really have some breakthrough tech. But hey, this is not something new. Magicians were taking advantage of such things for centuries ..
- syntaxing 2mo agoI’m a mechanical design engineer (10 years) turned software engineer (7 years in autonomous vehicles). Is there a particular role you would recommend for someone with my experience?
- tonyhart7 2mo agoIs DeepMind basically Google innovation hub ??? What happens when those ideas need to be scaled into real products, though? For instance, I can't really imagine Google being fully committed to manufacturing and selling robotic arms at scale.
- icepush 2mo agoDon't worry, after ten years of research a few employees will quit and form their own company, and release a robot arm, which will spur Google to release their own version 3 months later. (As is tradition)
- Centigonal 2mo agoImportant question: how many engineers does it take to teach a robot how to screw in a light bulb?
- nevir 2mo ago...and how many people to label all of the examples?
- KellyCriterion 2mo ago...and do not forget Support, Maintenance and that you will need an forever Cloud-connection...
- slashdave 2mo ago... we don't know, because this one can't?
- Frannky 2mo agoWorking there feels like a trap. Why work there when you can start a company? You get to choose the problem you care about most, the people you work with, and your own pace—and if it works, you own the success. Why accept all the rules Google will force on you, are those rules optimized for you or for them?
- drivebyhooting 2mo agoHow do I reliably apply? And is there a remote role?
- dwohnitmok 2mo ago[flagged]
- WarmWash 2mo agoWhat you are actually asking for is political commentary from someone just going about their job. They absolute best thing they could do is ignore the bait.
- dwohnitmok 2mo ago> political commentary from someone No it depends on what they choose to answer. canyon289's account self-describes as Bayesian, a hallmark of rationalists, one of whose taglines is "politics is the mind-killer". Nonetheless https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iKm2FhpWkuuBojm82/why-i-left-google-deepmind https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iKm2FhpWkuuBojm82/why-i-left... is one of the most upvoted posts on LessWrong (the big rationalist site) of all time. Most of the comments don't touch on the politics of the situation at all. > someone just going about their job They're doing a little bit more than that by actively recruiting (even more so than the usual "if this interests you we're hiring" bit at the end of a post). So I'm doing a little bit more by asking them about a recent high profile departure. It's a little bit different from the usual way employees chime in on threads.
- ed_mercer 2mo agoif DeepMind is such a great place to work, why have several leading researchers recently left for Anthropic and OpenAI? Are the problems limited to certain teams, or are the reports misleading?
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- kyrra 2mo agoHave those leads that left said why they left? Could it just be money?
- theptip 2mo agoIs there a broad benchmark like SWEBench or METR that’s credible for overall progress on dexterity tasks? I’m curious on the trendline for human parity.
- blubber 2mo agoHow do you explain applicants that the real goal of your work is folding underwear while the internet is flooded with announcements like this https://www.unitree.com/mobile/As2-W https://www.unitree.com/mobile/As2-W and people explaining how weapons could be mounted on such a thing?
- YeGoblynQueenne 2mo agoSounds great if you want to research, what DeepMind wants you to research; but that's not great if you want to go down the untrodden path where all the true innovation has the (very slim) chance to happen.