I Saw the Future of AI in a Robot That Can Learn on the Spot
wired ·
The article recounts a visit to Generalist AI, a Cambridge, Massachusetts startup, where robot arms demonstrated the ability to learn new tasks from short instructional videos without task-specific training. Notably, one robot improvised using a dustpan as a brush when the brush was missing, and another switched grippers to better unzip a purse and remove banknotes. The company's cofounders, who previously worked at Google DeepMind and Boston Dynamics, focus on teaching robots an intuitive sense of physics, similar to how human babies learn. They gather large amounts of high-quality training data using special glove-like grippers worn by human workers. However, the robots' learning skills are not yet fully reliable, completing tasks only about 59 percent of the time on average, though robotics experts see potential for commercial deployment in settings like manufacturing.
wired