4 ms·

I would eat a "hat with a wide brim" if Google isn't going to release a robot that can do basic household chores (laundry, dishes, dusting) within the next 3 ye

by drcode 12y ago

I would eat a "hat with a wide brim" if Google isn't going to release a robot that can do basic household chores (laundry, dishes, dusting) within the next 3 years. Google has been gobbling up robotics startups, and given how Google also loves gobbling up personal data, having robot "boots on the ground" in every home must be extremely appealing to them.

GhotiFish 12y ago
... Do you want me to note that in my calender?
- HSO 12y ago
  absolutely --> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8274902 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8274902
VikingCoder 12y ago
I'll congratulate you on not specifying a time duration for your meal. Indigestible material can cause a blockage in your colon, which can cause severe pain, damage to your colon, and even death. I suggest chopping the hat up into very, very small pieces, and eating them over a very long period, such as a month or longer.
- jschwartzi 12y ago
  If you'll excuse me, I have to write some letters to the legal department at the hat factory where I work.
robotresearcher 12y ago
I doubt it. The easy parts of laundry and dishes are already done by simple robots sold in every white goods department. The remaining parts are very demanding indeed. Research labs are not robustly demonstrating these capabilities yet, even with very expensive robots.
- bfung 12y ago
  I had this thought the other day - not robots washing the laundry, but folding it. Folding is actually not that simple after thinking about it.
  - robotresearcher 12y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy5g33S0Gzo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy5g33S0Gzo Work is progressing. That's a $300K robot. (edit: no affiliation. Video shows PR2 robot at Berkeley folding towels competently but very slowly in 2010)
- botman 12y ago
  Another robot researcher agrees. Classifying images is totally different from enabling a robot to perform a difficult task. Object recognition is a supervised learning problem, mapping image -> vector of probabilities. Robotic manipulation is a control problem, mapping a long sequence of images -> a long sequence of actions.
jrussino 12y ago
The idea is right but if by "release" you mean "sell to consumers" I think you're a little over-optimistic about the timeline. Google's driverless car project is a direct descendant of the tech developed for the DARPA Grand/Urban Challenges. Those took place in 2005-2007 [1]. It's been ~9 years since the first Grand Challenge, and while there has been great progress in this area no one will sell me an autonomous car just yet. The first DARPA robotics challenge was held in December of 2013 [2]. If you check out some of the videos from that competition [3] [4] (or some of the PR2 videos another user posted), you'll see that we can make general-purpose humanoids that can do some pretty neat stuff, but there's still a lot of work to be done before I can buy one that will reliably do many different household tasks. The Atlas platform that many of the competitors used in the DRC was developed by Boston Dynamics, who were subsequently bought by Google. So yes, they are definitely in this space. Maybe progress in humanoids will go faster just by virtue of the fact that we've got an extra decade of research to build on, but the journey from "works in a lab/demo, barely/slowly" to a viable commercial product is a long one. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Robotics_Challenge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Robotics_Challenge [3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzmMVHGNXvI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzmMVHGNXvI (sped-up highlights) [4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwWm3HaDbnQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwWm3HaDbnQ (full 10-hour recording of competition live-stream)

by drcode 12y ago

GhotiFish 12y ago

... Do you want me to note that in my calender?

HSO 12y ago
absolutely --> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8274902 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8274902

VikingCoder 12y ago

I'll congratulate you on not specifying a time duration for your meal. Indigestible material can cause a blockage in your colon, which can cause severe pain, damage to your colon, and even death. I suggest chopping the hat up into very, very small pieces, and eating them over a very long period, such as a month or longer.

jschwartzi 12y ago
If you'll excuse me, I have to write some letters to the legal department at the hat factory where I work.

robotresearcher 12y ago

I doubt it. The easy parts of laundry and dishes are already done by simple robots sold in every white goods department. The remaining parts are very demanding indeed. Research labs are not robustly demonstrating these capabilities yet, even with very expensive robots.

bfung 12y ago
I had this thought the other day - not robots washing the laundry, but folding it. Folding is actually not that simple after thinking about it.
- robotresearcher 12y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy5g33S0Gzo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy5g33S0Gzo Work is progressing. That's a $300K robot. (edit: no affiliation. Video shows PR2 robot at Berkeley folding towels competently but very slowly in 2010)
botman 12y ago
Another robot researcher agrees. Classifying images is totally different from enabling a robot to perform a difficult task. Object recognition is a supervised learning problem, mapping image -> vector of probabilities. Robotic manipulation is a control problem, mapping a long sequence of images -> a long sequence of actions.

jrussino 12y ago

The idea is right but if by "release" you mean "sell to consumers" I think you're a little over-optimistic about the timeline. Google's driverless car project is a direct descendant of the tech developed for the DARPA Grand/Urban Challenges. Those took place in 2005-2007 [1]. It's been ~9 years since the first Grand Challenge, and while there has been great progress in this area no one will sell me an autonomous car just yet. The first DARPA robotics challenge was held in December of 2013 [2]. If you check out some of the videos from that competition [3] [4] (or some of the PR2 videos another user posted), you'll see that we can make general-purpose humanoids that can do some pretty neat stuff, but there's still a lot of work to be done before I can buy one that will reliably do many different household tasks. The Atlas platform that many of the competitors used in the DRC was developed by Boston Dynamics, who were subsequently bought by Google. So yes, they are definitely in this space. Maybe progress in humanoids will go faster just by virtue of the fact that we've got an extra decade of research to build on, but the journey from "works in a lab/demo, barely/slowly" to a viable commercial product is a long one. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Robotics_Challenge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Robotics_Challenge [3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzmMVHGNXvI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzmMVHGNXvI (sped-up highlights) [4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwWm3HaDbnQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwWm3HaDbnQ (full 10-hour recording of competition live-stream)