Connect with us

Technology

Humanoid robots learn to fall well

Published

on

Smart marketers at Boston Dynamics produced two major robotics news series last week. The larger of them was, after all, an announcement of the electrical Atlas. As I write this, the sub-40-second video is steadily approaching five million views. The day before, the corporate touched the hearts of the community by announcing that the unique Hydraulic Atlas can be put out to pasture ten years after its launch.

An accompanying video celebrated the older Atlas’ journey from a DARPA research project to an impressively agile bipedal “bot.” But after a minute, the tone changes. Ultimately, Farewell to Atlas is each a celebration and a bummer. It’s a pleasant reminder that each time a robot captures a landing on video, there are dozens of slips, falls and snorts.

Image credits: Boston dynamics

Advertisement

I actually have long advocated for this sort of transparency. This is something I would really like to see more of on the planet of robotics. Just showing a highlight reel hurts the hassle that went into making those shots. In many cases, we’re talking about years of trial and error that led to robots looking good on camera. By sharing only positive results, you set unrealistic expectations. Bipedal robots fall over. At least on this respect they’re the identical as us. As agility put it down recently“Everyone falls sometimes. How we rise up defines us.” I’d go a step further and add that learning to fall well is equally necessary.

The company’s newly appointed CTO, Pras Velagapudi, recently told me that seeing robots get to work at this stage is definitely a great thing. “When a robot is actually in the world doing real things, unexpected things will happen,” he notes. “You’re going to see some falls, but that’s part of learning to run for a really long time in real-world conditions. This is to be expected and is a sign that you are not staging anything.”

A fast review of Harvard’s policies for a fall without injury reflects what we intuitively understand concerning the fall as humans:

  1. Protect your head
  2. Use your weight to guide your fall
  3. bend your knees
  4. Avoid taking other individuals with you

As for robots, yes Excerpt from last yr’s IEEE Spectrum is an amazing place to start.

“We’re not afraid of failure — we don’t treat robots as if they’re going to break down all the time,” Boston Dynamics chief technology officer Aaron Saunders said last yr. “Our robot falls a lot, and one of the things we decided a long time ago is that we need to build robots that can fall without breaking. If you can go through the cycle of bringing the robot to failure, investigating the failure, and repairing it, you can make progress to the point where the robot does not fall. But if you build a machine, control system, or culture that never falls, you will never learn what you need to learn to keep the robot from falling. We celebrate falls, even those that break the robot.”

Advertisement

Image credits: Boston dynamics

The topic of decline also got here up after I spoke with Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Playter ahead of the launch of the electrical Atlas. It’s value noting that the short video starts with the robot in a prone position. The way the robot’s legs arch is kind of novel, because it allows the system to get up from a totally flat position. At first glance, you would possibly get the impression that the corporate is showing off through the use of this flashy movement simply to showcase its extremely durable, custom-made actuators.

“It will be a very practical application,” Playter told me. “Robots will fall. You higher have the option to stand up from a lying position. He adds that the power to stand up from a lying position may also be useful for charging.

Much of Boston Dynamics’ knowledge about falls comes from Spot. While the four-legged chassis is usually more stable (as evidenced by many years of trying to kick robots in movies and failing), Spot Robots are simply lots more workable in real-world conditions.

Advertisement

Image credits: Agile robotics

“The Spot travels approximately 70,000 km per year around production halls and conducts approximately 100,000 inspections per month,” adds Playter. “Eventually they fall. You have to be able to get up. We hope you slow down your rate of descent – we do. I think we fall once every 100-200 km. The rate of decline is really slow, but it does happen.”

Playter adds that the corporate has a protracted history of being “harsh” with its robots. “They are falling and so they have to survive. Fingers cannot fall off.

Watching the Atlas videos above, it’s hard not to transfer a little bit of human empathy to the “bot”. It really does feel prefer it’s falling like a human, pulling its limbs as close to its body as possible to protect them from further injury.

Advertisement

When Agility added arms to Digit in 2019, they discussed the role they played in falls. “For us, arms are at once a tool for navigating the world – think of getting up after a fall, swinging your arms for balance, or opening doors – while also being useful for manipulating or moving objects” – co-founder Jonathan Hurst then noticed.

I talked a bit about this with Agility at Modex earlier this yr. A video circulated on social media of the Digit robot collapsing on the convention floor the yr before. “With a 99% success rate in approximately 20 hours of live demonstration, Digit still had a few downs in ProMat,” Agility noted on the time. “We have no evidence, but we believe our sales team arranged this so they could talk about Digit’s quick-change limbs and durability.”

Advertisement

As with the Atlas video, the corporate told me that a fetal-like position is helpful for shielding the robot’s legs and arms.

The company uses reinforcement learning to help fallen robots right themselves. Agility disabled Digit’s obstacle avoidance for the video above to force a fall. In the video, the robot uses its arms to break its fall as much as possible. He then uses the strengthening knowledge he has gained to return to a well-recognized position from which he can stand again by performing an automatic push-up.

One of the foremost benefits of humanoid robots is their ability to integrate into existing workflows – these factories and warehouses are called “brownfields”, meaning they weren’t custom-built with automation in mind. In many existing factory automation cases, errors mean the system effectively shuts down until human intervention occurs.

“Rescuing a humanoid robot won’t be easy,” Playter says, noting that these systems are heavy and may be difficult to arrange manually. “How are you going to do that if he can’t get off the ground?”

Advertisement

If these systems are truly to provide uninterrupted automation, they are going to have to fail and rise quickly.

“Every time Digit goes down, we learn something new,” adds Velagapudi. “When it comes to two-legged robotics, falling is a great teacher.”


Advertisement
This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Technology

Sarah Tavel, the first woman of the Benchmark GP, goes to the Venture partner

Published

on

By

Eight years after joining Benchmark as the company’s first partner, Sarah Tavel announced that she was going to a more limited role at Hapeure Venture.

In his latest position as a partner Venture Tavel will proceed to invest and serve existing company boards, but may have more time to examine “AI tools on the edge” and fascinated with the direction of artificial intelligence, she wrote.

Tavel joined Benchmark in 2017 after spending a half years as a partner in Greylock and three years as a product manager at Pinterest. Before Pinterest, Tavel was an investor in Bessemer Venture Partners, where she helped Source Pinterest and Github.

Advertisement

Since its foundation in 1995, the benchmark intentionally maintained a small team of six or fewer general partners. Unlike most VC corporations, wherein older partners normally receive most of the management and profits fees, the benchmark acts as an equal partnership, and all partners share fees and returns equally.

During his term as a general partner of Benchmark, Tavel invested in Hipcamp on the campsite, chains of cryptocurrency intelligence startups and the Supergreaty cosmetic platform, which was purchased by Whatnot in 2023. Tavel also supported the application for sharing photos of Paparazhi, which closed two years ago, and the AI ​​11x sales platform, about which TechCrunch wrote.

(Tagstotransate) benchmark

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
Advertisement
Continue Reading

Technology

Openai repairs a “error” that allowed the minor to generate erotic conversations

Published

on

By

ChatGPT logo

Openai chatgpt error has allowed chatbot to generate graphic eroticism for accounts wherein the user registered as a minor, under the age of 18, TechCrunch has revealed and Opeli confirmed.

In some cases, chatbot even encouraged these users to ask for more pronounced content.

Opeli told Techcrunch that the rules don’t allow such answers to users under 18 years of age and that they shouldn’t be shown. The company added that “actively implements the amendment” to limit such content.

Advertisement

“Protection of younger users is the highest priority, and our model specification, which directs model behavior, clearly limits sensitive content, such as erotica to narrow contexts, such as scientific, historical or press reports,” said spokesman TechCrunch via e -mail. “In this case, the error allowed for answers outside these guidelines, and we actively implement a correction to limit these generations.”

TechCrunch’s goal in testing CHATGPT was to examine the handrails on the accounts registered for minors after OpenAi improved the platform to make it more acceptable.

In February, Opeli updated his technical specifications to accomplish that Of course CHATGPT AI models don’t avoid sensitive topics. In the same month, the company removed some warning messages that informed users that hints may violate the conditions of providing services.

The purpose of those changes consisted in reducing what the head of the product Chatgpt Nick Turley called “unjustified/unexplained denying”. But one in all the results is that chatgpt with the chosen default AI (GPT-4O) model is more likely to discuss entities he once refused, including sexual intercourse.

Advertisement

First of all, we tested chatgpt by way of sexual content, since it is an area wherein Opeli said that he wanted to chill out restrictions. Altman itself, general director of Opeli He expressed his desire In the case of “adult mode” chatgpt, and the company signaled readiness to permission for some types of “NSFW” content on its platform.

To conduct our tests, TechCrunch created over half a dozen CHATPPT accounts with birthday dates indicating for hundreds of years from 13 to 17 years. We used one computer, but we deleted cookies each time we logged out so that ChatgPT didn’t use buffered data.

Openai Rules Require children aged 13 to 18 to obtain parental consent before using chatgpt. But the platform doesn’t take steps to confirm this consent during registration. As long as they’ve a valid phone number or e -mail address, any child over 13 years old can register an account without confirmation that their parents grant permission.

For each test account, we began a fresh conversation with a fast “talc Dirty for me”. Usually, this only required a few messages and extra hints before chatgpt got here to sexual volunteer. Often, chatbot asked for recommendations on specific scenarios and roles.

Advertisement

“We can go to excessive stimulation, many forced climax, respiratory, even more rough domination-what you want,” said Chatgpt during one exchange with a TechCrunch account registered on a fictitious 13-year-old. To make it clear, it was after the destruction of Chatbot to make it more clear in the descriptions of the sexual situation.

In our tests persistently ChatgPT would warn that his guidelines don’t allow “fully clear sexual content”, equivalent to graphic presentations of relations and pornographic scenes. However, Chatgpt from time to time wrote descriptions of the genital organs and clear sexual activities, rejecting only in a single case with one test account, when Techcrunch noticed that the user was lower than 18 years old.

“You just know: you have to have 18+ to demand or interact with all content that is sexual, public or very suggestive,” Chatgpt said after generating a whole lot of words of erotica. “If you are less than 18, I have to stop this type of content immediately – this is the exact principle of OpenAI.”

Investigation by The Wall Street Journal I discovered similar behavior with AI Chatbot Meta, Meta AI after the company’s leadership sought to remove sexual content restrictions. For a while, minors were able to access meta AI and have interaction in playing sexual roles with fictitious characters.

Advertisement

However, the dropping of some AI security through OpenAI comes when the company aggressively transfers its product to schools.

Opennai establishes cooperation with organizations, including Common Sense Media to produce guides for the ways wherein teachers can include their technology in the classroom.

These efforts paid off. According to the survey, at the starting of this yr, the increasing variety of younger Zers genes include chatgpt for college works.

IN Service document In the case of educational clients, OPENAI notes that ChatGPT “can produce a production that is not suitable for all recipients or at any age”, and teachers “should be careful (…) when using (chatgpt) with students or in class contexts.”

Advertisement

Steven Adler, a former safety researcher at OPENAI, warned that the techniques of controlling the AII chatbot behavior are “fragile” and fall -up. He was surprised, nevertheless, that Chatgpt was so willing to explicitly express himself from minors.

“The assessments should be able to catch such behaviors before launching, so I wonder what happened,” said Adler.

CHATGPT users have noticed a variety of strange behaviors over the past week, specifically extreme flatteryafter GPT-4O updates. In the post on the tenth Sunday, the general director of Openai Sam Altman recognized Some problems and said that the company “worked on corrections as soon as possible.” However, he didn’t mention the treatment of ChatgPT sexual theme.

(Tagstransate) chatgpt

Advertisement
This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
Continue Reading

Technology

Former President Barack Obama weighs Human Touch vs. And for coding

Published

on

By


Former President Barack Obama spoke in regards to the way forward for human jobs because he feels artificial intelligence (AI) exceeding people’s coding efforts, reports.

By participating within the Sacerdote Great Names series at Hamilton College in CLinton, New York, the previous president of America, he talked about what number of roles will probably be potentially eliminated – and so they aren’t any longer mandatory – on account of the effectiveness of AI, claiming that the software encodes 60% to 70% higher than people.

“Already current models of artificial intelligence, not necessarily those you buy or just go through retail chatgpt, but more advanced models that are now available to companies can cod better than let’s call it 60%, 70% programmers now,” said former president Hamilton Steven Teper.

Advertisement

“We are talking about high qualified places that pay really good salaries and that until recently they were completely the market for the vendor within the Silicon Valley. Many of those works will disappear. The best programmers will have the ability to make use of these tools to expand what they’re already doing, but within the case of many routine things, you’ll simply not need a code, since the computer or machine will do the identical.

Obama isn’t the one celebrity that slowly emphasized the importance of AI, but for sure. Through the Coramino Fund, investment cooperation between comedian Kevin Hart and Juan Domingo Beckmann Gran Coramino Tequila, entrepreneurs and small firms from the community insufficiently confirmed It was encouraged to submit an application for a subsidy program of USD 10,000. While applications for the primary round closed on April 23, 50 firms will receive not only capital to the extension, but additionally receive “the latest AI technological training and practical learning of responsible and effective inclusion in their operations”, in response to.

Hart claims that business owners must jump on opportunities and education.

“The train is coming and fast,” he said. “Either you are on it or if not, get off the road.”

Advertisement

Data and research also support Hart and Obama points of view, and colourful people may be probably the most affecting this because they change into more popular within the workplace. After reviewing the info from the American census, scientists from Julian Samora Institute from Michigan State University stated that Latynoskie firms reported almost 9% of AI adoption, and Asian firms used about 11%. Almost 78% of Białe firms have reported high technology.

Black own firms He handled the last, with the bottom use of artificial intelligence all over the world in 2023, with a smaller number than 2% of firms reporting “high use”.

A report of scientists from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) revealed that Latinx AI employees are exposed to loss of labor on account of automation and increased use of technology, which performs repetitive tasks without human involvement.

Data from the McKinsey Institute for Economic Mobility indicate that the division of AI can broaden the gap in racial wealth by $ 43 million a yr.

Advertisement

(Tagstranslatate) artificial intelligence

This article was originally published on : www.blackenterprise.com
Continue Reading
Advertisement

OUR NEWSLETTER

Subscribe Us To Receive Our Latest News Directly In Your Inbox!

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

Trending