Boston Dynamics' Robot Dog Can Now Read Gauges, Spot Spills, and Reason (ieee.org)
- Reference: 0181721730
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/04/15/2143237/boston-dynamics-robot-dog-can-now-read-gauges-spot-spills-and-reason
- Source link: https://spectrum.ieee.org/boston-dynamics-spot-google-deepmind
> Boston Dynamics is one of the few companies to commercially deploy legged robots at any appreciable scale; there are now several thousand hard at work. Today the company is [2]announcing that its quadruped robot Spot is now equipped with Google DeepMind's Gemini Robotics-ER 1.6, a high-level embodied reasoning model that brings usability and intelligence to complex tasks.
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> [T]he focus of this partnership is on one of the very few applications where legged robots have proven themselves to be commercially viable: inspection. That is, wandering around industrial facilities, checking to make sure that nothing is imminently exploding. With the new AI onboard, Spot is now able to autonomously look for dangerous debris or spills, read complex gauges and sight glasses, and call on tools like vision-language-action models when it needs help understanding what's going on in the environment around it.
"Advances like Gemini Robotics-ER 1.6 mark an important step toward robots that can better understand and operate in the physical world," Marco da Silva, vice president and general manager of Spot at Boston Dynamics, says in a [3]press release . "Capabilities like instrument reading and more reliable task reasoning will enable Spot to see, understand, and react to real-world challenges completely autonomously."
You can watch a demo of Spot's new capabilities [4]on YouTube .
[1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/boston-dynamics-spot-google-deepmind
[2] https://bostondynamics.com/blog/tools-for-your-to-do-list-with-spot-and-gemini-robotics/
[3] https://bostondynamics.com/blog/aivi-learning-now-powered-google-gemini-robotics/
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP4-c5AK30g
It can also lie about its capabilities! (Score:2, Informative)
No, it cannot "reason". Stop making that claim.
Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)
It helps to have [1]some idea what you are talking about [wikipedia.org] before you write a post. Of course, that has really never been your thing.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasoning_model
Re: (Score:2)
I do know how automated deduction works. That is reasoning. Faking it with an LLM is not.
Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)
Seriously ... you have to be the biggest idiot on Slashdot. "LLMs can't work, even though they do, and I'm going to keep claiming they can't, and I'm never going to admit it!" Herp Derp.
That Demo's A Joke (Score:2)
I've been following Boston Dynamics' YouTube for years now so as to know what we're going to be up against, so I already saw that video we're calling a "Demo of Spot's new capabilities." Half of it is the machine interacting with a mortal dog in an extremely staged and handler with biscuits off screen way, and the other half is all cut so there's no way to tell what, if any, "embodied AI" capabilities are on display. What a joke. At least it wasn't straight up genAI video this time.
Dancing is cool (Score:2)
They can put the Jabberwockies out of business I suppose? Big whoop. How about showing some dexterity tasks? Like do sculpting or assemble a Lego set? I mean if it can even build something using Lego Duplo blocks I'd be impressed.
Robotics People are ... Aspirational (Score:2, Interesting)
I recently joined a robotics company, and quickly learned that there's a giant divide between the "aspirational" robotics companies, which promise humanoid (or canine) robots, and the practical real-world companies. The humanoids get all the press, while the practical robots rarely make the news at all.
But if you notice, you will almost never see a humanoid robot demo next to an actual human ... because those things are freaking dangerous! Humanoids are still a decade or more away from being able to safel
just one question ? (Score:2)
Why do they require eye's, human or otherwise, on a gauge anyway ? Shouldn't that be automated ?
Note: I claim no production knowledge
Can it talk like a Scottisch construction worker? (Score:2)
That would be braw.
Yea but... (Score:1)
will it run off after a rabbit and give you an hour of exercise? Get a real dog people! They clean up all the food you drop. Help you remember countless things, like, what food they can and cannot eat. How much you should feed them. They get you out for walks, see nature, keep your vitamin D dosage up. They help you socialize with other people that have dogs and give you something to talk about instead of awkwardly avoiding politics and just talking about the weather. For bonus points you can get a proper h
Reason (Score:1)
I highly fucking doubt that their robot or AI can reason.
Re: (Score:2)
Beat me to it! I had the same thought the moment I read the title.
Re: (Score:1)
If you have any doubt whatsoever, you're an idiot. And you don't seem like an idiot.
Re: (Score:2)
There are no machines that can reason for any practical purpose. (The depth is missing.) Why would an inferior computing platform, of all things, be able to?
Re: (Score:2)
It depends on how you define the term. I tend to consider any choice an act of reasoning (including a simple if test). I know that most people have a different definition, but I can rarely get them to define what they mean by the term. I tend to suspect it's an "I know it when I see it" kind of thing.
Re: (Score:2)
It can. Reasoning according to the dictionary is "the action of thinking about something in a logical, sensible way" .. or by my own definition it's "identify a situation and make a decision towards a goal based on that situation."
Either way, an here's example of reasoning in a self driving car: Recognizing an object on the highway as an immovable road hazard, and making the decision to drive around it instead of hard-breaking due to the fact that there are no cars on the adjacent lane.
The car was taught, v
Re: (Score:3)
Recognizing an object on the highway as an immovable road hazard, and making the decision to drive around it instead of hard-breaking due to the fact that there are no cars on the adjacent lane.
You should send your ideas to Tesla.