Robotics Q&A with UC Berkeley’s Ken Goldberg

For the following weeks that are few For Millionaires’s robotics newsletter Actuator will be running Q&As with some of the top minds in robotics. Subscribe here for future updates.

Part 1: CMU’s Matthew Johnson-Roberson
Part 2: Toyota Research Institute’s Max Bajracharya and Russ Tedrake
Part 3: Meta’s Dhruv Batra
Part 4: Boston Dynamics’ Aaron Saunders

Ken Goldberg is a professor and the William S. Floyd Jr. Distinguished Chair in Engineering at UC Berkeley, a co-founder and chief scientist at robotics parcel sorting startup Ambidextrous and a fellow at IEEE. 

What role(s) will generative play that is AI the continuing future of robotics?

Although the rumblings began a bit previously, 2023 may be recalled once the 12 months whenever generative AI changed Robotics. Huge language designs like ChatGPT enables robots and people to communicate in all-natural language. Terms developed as time passes to portray concepts that are useful “chair” to “chocolate” to “charisma.” Roboticists also discovered that large Vision-Language-Action models can be trained to facilitate robot perception and to control the motions of robot arms and legs. Training requires vast amounts of data so labs around the global globe are now actually working together to share with you information. Email address details are pouring in and even though there are questions that are open generalization, the impact will be profound.

Another exciting topic is “Multi-Modal models” in two senses of multi-modal:

• Multi-Modal in combining input that is different, e.g. Vision and Language. It is today becoming extended to incorporate Tactile and Depth sensing, and Robot Actions.

• Multi-Modal in regards to enabling various activities as a result towards the input state that is same. This is surprisingly common in robotics; for example there are many ways to grasp an object. Standard deep models will “average” these grasp actions which can produce very grasps that are poor.  One really way that is exciting preserve multi-modal actions is Diffusion Policies, developed by Shuran Song, now at Stanford.

What are your thoughts on the humanoid form factor?

I’ve always been skeptical about humanoids and legged robots, as they can be overly sensational and inefficient, but I’m reconsidering after seeing the latest humanoids and quadrupeds from Boston Dynamics, Agility and Unitree. Tesla has the engineering skills to develop motors that are low-cost gearing methods at scale. Legged robots have numerous benefits over rims in houses and industrial facilities to traverse tips, dirt and rugs. Bimanual (two-armed) robots are necessary for most jobs, but we however believe quick grippers will still be much more cost-effective and reliable than five-fingered robot hands.

Following manufacturing and warehouses, what is the next category that is major robotics?

After the present union wage settlements, we think we’ll see a lot more robots in production and warehouses than we now have these days. Current development in self-driving taxis is impressive, particularly in san francisco bay area where conditions that are driving more complex than Phoenix. But I’m not convinced that they can be cost-effective. For robot-assisted surgery, researchers are exploring Dexterity that is“Augmented” where robots can boost medical abilities by carrying out low-level subtasks such suturing.

How far away tend to be real general-purpose robots?

I don’t expect you’ll see real AGI and general-purpose robots within the future that is near. Not a roboticist that is single understand concerns about robots taking tasks or getting our overlords.

Will house robots (past vacuums) lose within the decade that is next

I predict that within the decade that is next has inexpensive house robots that will declutter — get things such as garments, toys and garbage through the flooring and put all of them into proper containers. These robots will occasionally make mistakes, but the benefits for parents and senior citizens will outweigh the risks.(* like today’s vacuum cleaners What robotics that are important is not getting adequate protection?

Robot movement preparation. It is among the earliest topics in robotics — how exactly to manage the engine bones to maneuver the robot device and get away from hurdles. Numerous believe this nagging problem has been solved, but it hasn’t.  

Robot “singularities” are a problem that is fundamental all robot hands; these are typically completely different from Kurzweil’s hypothetical stage whenever AI surpasses people. Robot singularities tend to be things in area where a robot prevents unexpectedly and must certanly be manually reset by a operator that is human. Singularities arise from the math needed to convert desired motion that is straight-line of gripper to the matching movements for every associated with six robot shared engines. This conversion becomes unstable (similar to a divide-by-zero error), and the robot needs to be reset.For at certain points in space repetitive robot motions, singularities can be avoided by tedious fine-tuning that is manual of robot movements to regulate all of them in a way that they never encounter singularities. When motions that are such determined, they are repeated over and over again. But for the generation that is growing of where robot movements aren’t repeated, including palletizing, bin-picking, purchase satisfaction and bundle sorting, singularities are normal. These are generally a well-known and problem that is fundamental they disrupt robot operations at unpredictable times (often several times per hour). I co-founded a startup that is new Jacobi Robotics, that