Home News Robotics Q&A with UC Berkeley’s Ken Goldberg

Robotics Q&A with UC Berkeley’s Ken Goldberg

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For the following few weeks, TechCrunch’s robotics publication Actuator might be operating Q&As with among the prime minds in robotics. Subscribe right here for future updates.

Half 1: CMU’s Matthew Johnson-Roberson
Half 2: Toyota Analysis Institute’s Max Bajracharya and Russ Tedrake
Half 3: Meta’s Dhruv Batra
Half 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 position(s) will generative AI play in the way forward for robotics?

Though the rumblings began a bit earlier, 2023 might be remembered because the yr when generative AI remodeled Robotics. Massive language fashions like ChatGPT can permit robots and people to speak in pure language. Phrases developed over time to symbolize helpful ideas from “chair” to “chocolate” to “charisma.” Roboticists additionally found that giant Imaginative and prescient-Language-Motion fashions could be educated to facilitate robotic notion and to manage the motions of robotic legs and arms. Coaching requires huge quantities of knowledge so labs world wide at the moment are collaborating to share knowledge. Outcomes are pouring in and though there are nonetheless open questions on generalization, the affect might be profound.

One other thrilling matter is “Multi-Modal fashions” in two senses of multi-modal:

  • Multi-Modal in combining completely different enter modes, e.g. Imaginative and prescient and Language. That is now being prolonged to incorporate Tactile and Depth sensing, and Robotic Actions.
  • Multi-Modal by way of permitting completely different actions in response to the identical enter state. That is surprisingly widespread in robotics; for instance there are numerous methods to know an object. Customary deep fashions will “common” these grasp actions which might produce very poor grasps.  One very thrilling option to protect multi-modal actions is Diffusion Insurance policies, developed by Shuran Track, now at Stanford.
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What are your ideas on the humanoid kind issue?

I’ve all the time been skeptical about humanoids and legged robots, as they are often overly sensational and inefficient, however I’m reconsidering after seeing the newest humanoids and quadrupeds from Boston Dynamics, Agility and Unitree. Tesla has the engineering abilities to develop low-cost motors and gearing techniques at scale. Legged robots have many benefits over wheels in houses and factories to traverse steps, particles and rugs. Bimanual (two-armed) robots are important for a lot of duties, however I nonetheless imagine that easy grippers will proceed to be extra dependable and cost-effective than five-fingered robotic arms.

Following manufacturing and warehouses, what’s the subsequent main class for robotics?

After the latest union wage settlements, I feel we’ll see many extra robots in manufacturing and warehouses than we’ve in the present day. Latest progress in self-driving taxis has been spectacular, particularly in San Francisco the place driving circumstances are extra advanced than Phoenix. However I’m not satisfied that they are often cost-effective. For robot-assisted surgical procedure, researchers are exploring “Augmented Dexterity” — the place robots can improve surgical abilities by performing low-level subtasks reminiscent of suturing.

How far out are true general-purpose robots?

I don’t anticipate to see true AGI and general-purpose robots within the close to future. Not a single roboticist I do know worries about robots stealing jobs or changing into our overlords.

Will residence robots (past vacuums) take off within the subsequent decade?

I predict that throughout the subsequent decade we may have inexpensive residence robots that may declutter — decide up issues like garments, toys and trash from the ground and place them into acceptable bins. Like in the present day’s vacuum cleaners, these robots will often make errors, however the advantages for folks and senior residents will outweigh the dangers.

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 What necessary robotics story/development isn’t getting sufficient protection?

Robotic movement planning. This is among the oldest topics in robotics — the way to management the motor joints to maneuver the robotic device and keep away from obstacles. Many assume this downside has been solved, however it hasn’t.  

Robotic “singularities” are a basic downside for all robotic arms; they’re very completely different from Kurzweil’s hypothetical cut-off date when AI surpasses people. Robotic singularities are factors in area the place a robotic stops unexpectedly and should be manually reset by a human operator. Singularities come up from the mathematics wanted to transform desired straight-line movement of the gripper into the corresponding motions for every of the six robotic joint motors. At sure factors in area, this conversion turns into unstable (much like a divide-by-zero error), and the robotic must be reset.

For repetitive robotic motions, singularities could be averted by tedious handbook fine-tuning of repetitive robotic motions to regulate them such that they by no means encounter singularities. As soon as such motions are decided, they’re repeated over and over. However for the rising technology of functions the place robotic motions aren’t repetitive, together with palletizing, bin-picking, order success and bundle sorting, singularities are widespread. They’re a widely known and basic downside as they disrupt robotic operations at unpredictable occasions (usually a number of occasions per hour). I co-founded a brand new startup, Jacobi Robotics, that implements environment friendly algorithms which might be *assured* to keep away from singularities. This could considerably improve reliability and productiveness for all robots.  

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