Just add Humans to smarter robot

Amazon launches new robot Sparrow: Identifying, grabbing, and packing items to handle most everything in the warehouse robotics facility (Appearance at Amazon)

Sparrow is designed to pick out items that are piled up, so they can be packed into shipping orders. That’s one of the most difficult tasks in warehouse robotics because there are so many different objects, each with different shapes, textures, and malleability, that can be piled up haphazardly. Sparrow takes on that challenge by using machine learning and cameras to identify objects piled in a bin and plan how to grab one using a custom gripper with several suction tubes. Amazon demonstrated Sparrow for the first time today at the company’s robotics manufacturing facility in Massachusetts.

When asked about worker replacement, Brady said the role of robots is misunderstood. He said that he does not see it as replacing people. “It’s humans and machines working together—not humans versus machines—and if I can allow people to focus on higher level tasks, that’s the win.”

Source: https://www.wired.com/story/amazons-new-robot-sparrow-can-handle-most-items-in-the-everything-store/

Remotely Operating a Robot with a Humanoid: The Rise and Fall of Robots in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

At its event today, Amazon also demonstrated a new delivery drone, called MK30, that is capable of carrying loads of up to 5 pounds. Amazon has been testing drone delivery in Lockeford, California, and College Station, Texas, and says the new, more efficient drone will go into service in 2024. The Rivian electric delivery vehicle that the company showcased includes custom safety systems that include collision warning and automatic braking, as well as a system called Fleet Edge which gathers street view footage andGPS data in order to improve delivery routes.

For humans to help robots with teleoperation, AI might also need to be developed to ease the collaboration between person and machine. Chelsea Finn, an assistant professor at UC Berkeley, recently shared details of a fascinating research project that involves using machine learning to allow cheap teleoperated robot arms to work smoothly and accurately. It is possible that the technology will make it easier for humans to operate robot remotely.

Industrial robots are powerful, precise, and mostly stubbornly stupid. They cannot do the kind of delicate manipulation tasks that are needed. The use of robots in factories is limited in part because they require a lot of human workers to assemble them.

Here’s one of Sanctuary’s robots—the top half of a humanoid—doing a range of sophisticated manipulation tasks. Offscreen, a human wearing a VR headset and sensor-laden gloves is operating the robot remotely.

Some robots already get some remote assistance from humans when they get stuck, as I’ve written about. Delivery mules are flummoxed by unusual situations because of the limits of Artificial Intelligence. It is difficult to pull off fully automated driving due to the fact that some companies are trying to put remote piloted trucks on the roads.

Source: https://www.wired.com/story/fast-forward-for-smarter-robots-just-add-humans/

Sanctuary: Using Data from Humans to Drive Human-Like Robotics and AI Advances in Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Neural Networks

Sanctuary’s co-owners, Suzanne Gilbert andgeordie Rose, ran another company that did robotic teleoperation that was acquired by UK supermarket firmo in 2020. In this video they discuss the history and plans for the future of the company.

The aim is to use the data from humans to teach the robots to do more autonomously. Gilbert, Sanctuary’s CTO, believes that achieving humanlike intelligence in machines will require them to interact with and learn from the physical world. (Sorry, ChatGPT.)

OpenAI is interested in teleoperated humanoids. It is leading a $23.5 million investment in 1X, a startup developing a human-like robot. Brad Lightcap is the COO of Openai’sStartup Fund and he says that 1X can have a big impact on the future of work.

This is an edition of WIRED’s Fast Forward newsletter, a weekly dispatch from the future by Will Knight, exploring AI advances and other technology set to change our lives.