With Alphabet's legendary commitment to products, we can't wait to see what its robotics biz Intrinsic achieves
(2021/07/24)
- Reference: 1627078930
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/07/23/alphabet_intrinsic_robotics/
- Source link:
Alphabet today launched its latest tech startup, Intrinsic, which aims to build commercial software that will power industrial robots.
Intrinsic will focus on developing software control tools for industrial robots used in manufacturing, we're told. Its pitch is that the days of humans having to manually program and adjust a robot's every move are over, and that mechanical bots should be more autonomous and smart, thanks to advances in artificial intelligence and leaps in training techniques.
This could make robots easier to direct – give them a task, and they'll figure out the specifics – and more efficient – the AI can work out the best way to achieve its goal.
[1]
“Over the last few years, our team has been exploring how to give industrial robots the ability to sense, learn, and automatically make adjustments as they’re completing tasks, so they work in a wider range of settings and applications,” [2]said CEO Wendy Tan White.
[3]
[4]
“Working in collaboration with teams across Alphabet, and with our partners in real-world manufacturing settings, we’ve been testing software that uses techniques like automated perception, deep learning, reinforcement learning, motion planning, simulation, and force control.”
Tan White – a British entrepreneur and investor who was made an MBE by the Queen in 2016 for her services to the tech industry – will leave her role as vice president of X, Alphabet’s moonshot R&D lab, to concentrate on Intrinsic.
[5]Google yanks cash firehose from Lunar X Moonshot comp. The actual Moon shot one
[6]Grinchy Google to shut down another batch of services
[7]Want Google to erase your data? Just wait for it to kill off one of its apps
[8]Google murders Google Code, orders everyone out to GitHub and co
[9]Another body for the Google graveyard: Chrome Web Store payments. Bad news if you wanted to bank some income from these apps
[10]Google killed desktop Drive and replaced it with two apps. Now it’s killing those, and Drive for desktop is returning
[11]OpenAI shuts down robotics team because it doesn't have enough data yet
[12]Robots still suck. It's all they can do to stand up – never mind rise up
She earlier co-founded and was CEO of website-building biz Moonfruit, and helped multiple early-stage companies get up and running as a general partner at Entrepreneur First, a tech accelerator. She is also a board trustee of the UK’s Alan Turing Institute, and member of Blighty's Digital Economic Council.
“I loved the role I played in creating platforms that inspired the imagination and entrepreneurship of people all over the world, and I’ve recently stepped into a similar opportunity: I’m delighted to share that I’m now leading Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company,” she said.
[13]
The new outfit is another venture to emerge from Google-parent Alphabet’s X labs, along with Waymo, the self-driving car startup; and Verily, a biotech biz. ®
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[2] https://blog.x.company/introducing-intrinsic-1cf35b87651
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YPvkw69Qth@KCNlvtA9rKAAAAMk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
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[5] https://www.theregister.com/2018/01/24/google_lunar_x_prize_withdrawn/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2012/12/15/google_winter_cleaning/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2014/01/03/google_bounces_bump_in_mobile_cull/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2015/03/12/google_code_shutdown/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/23/google_sunsets_chrome_web_store/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/13/google_drive_desktop_app_resurrection/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/18/in_brief_ai/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/07/robot_feature/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YPvkw69Qth@KCNlvtA9rKAAAAMk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Intrinsic will focus on developing software control tools for industrial robots used in manufacturing, we're told. Its pitch is that the days of humans having to manually program and adjust a robot's every move are over, and that mechanical bots should be more autonomous and smart, thanks to advances in artificial intelligence and leaps in training techniques.
This could make robots easier to direct – give them a task, and they'll figure out the specifics – and more efficient – the AI can work out the best way to achieve its goal.
[1]
“Over the last few years, our team has been exploring how to give industrial robots the ability to sense, learn, and automatically make adjustments as they’re completing tasks, so they work in a wider range of settings and applications,” [2]said CEO Wendy Tan White.
[3]
[4]
“Working in collaboration with teams across Alphabet, and with our partners in real-world manufacturing settings, we’ve been testing software that uses techniques like automated perception, deep learning, reinforcement learning, motion planning, simulation, and force control.”
Tan White – a British entrepreneur and investor who was made an MBE by the Queen in 2016 for her services to the tech industry – will leave her role as vice president of X, Alphabet’s moonshot R&D lab, to concentrate on Intrinsic.
[5]Google yanks cash firehose from Lunar X Moonshot comp. The actual Moon shot one
[6]Grinchy Google to shut down another batch of services
[7]Want Google to erase your data? Just wait for it to kill off one of its apps
[8]Google murders Google Code, orders everyone out to GitHub and co
[9]Another body for the Google graveyard: Chrome Web Store payments. Bad news if you wanted to bank some income from these apps
[10]Google killed desktop Drive and replaced it with two apps. Now it’s killing those, and Drive for desktop is returning
[11]OpenAI shuts down robotics team because it doesn't have enough data yet
[12]Robots still suck. It's all they can do to stand up – never mind rise up
She earlier co-founded and was CEO of website-building biz Moonfruit, and helped multiple early-stage companies get up and running as a general partner at Entrepreneur First, a tech accelerator. She is also a board trustee of the UK’s Alan Turing Institute, and member of Blighty's Digital Economic Council.
“I loved the role I played in creating platforms that inspired the imagination and entrepreneurship of people all over the world, and I’ve recently stepped into a similar opportunity: I’m delighted to share that I’m now leading Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company,” she said.
[13]
The new outfit is another venture to emerge from Google-parent Alphabet’s X labs, along with Waymo, the self-driving car startup; and Verily, a biotech biz. ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YPvkw69Qth@KCNlvtA9rKAAAAMk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://blog.x.company/introducing-intrinsic-1cf35b87651
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YPvkw69Qth@KCNlvtA9rKAAAAMk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
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[5] https://www.theregister.com/2018/01/24/google_lunar_x_prize_withdrawn/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2012/12/15/google_winter_cleaning/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2014/01/03/google_bounces_bump_in_mobile_cull/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2015/03/12/google_code_shutdown/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/23/google_sunsets_chrome_web_store/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/13/google_drive_desktop_app_resurrection/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/18/in_brief_ai/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/07/robot_feature/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YPvkw69Qth@KCNlvtA9rKAAAAMk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
"the AI can work out the best way to achieve its goal"
Pascal Monett
No. The Statistical Analysis Machine is going to use and break a million industrial robots in order to find the best way to do one job without breaking either the machine or the piece it is supposed to work on.
IBM finally made a computer that could soundly beat a master chess player - but only because said computer played [1]60 million games against itself before being confronted to a human, which doesn't have a chance in hell of playing more than a few thousand in his lifetime.
Industrial robots are built for one task. A riveting robot is not going to paint, a painting robot is not going to cut metal.
Intrinsic might be an interesting experiment in applied computing science, but I doubt companies will want their expensive equipment "finding out" how to do the one thing they were bought for.
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2018/05/10/heres_what_garry_kasparov_an_old_world_chess_champion_thinks_of_ai/
ROTM
Combined with Google's ongoing [1]AI training program , this is going to end well...
[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DJeAlYTVAAAk7Lp.jpg