![]() It is making some impressive leaps in the level of robotic understanding natural language that a human might use. Speed and precision is one thing, but the nut Google is really trying to crack in its robotic labs, is the intersection between human language and robotics. “It’s not a skill where you can read the rules and become a champion overnight. You can learn from people playing: it’s a skill that people develop by practicing,” Vincent Vanhoucke, Distinguished Scientist and head of robotics at Google Research told me. Ping-pong is a really nice microcosm of the problem. But being fast and adaptive and precise is a really big challenge. You can be fast and not adaptive at all that’s not a problem. One of the big challenges in robotics today is this intersection of being fast, precise and adaptive. Image Credits: Haje Kamps (opens in a new window) / TechCrunch (opens in a new window) Here, one of the robotics researchers at Google is taking a break, showing the robot what’s what. Table tennis is a game where the robot can easily self-determine whether a task was successful and learn from its mistakes. You might say, “But what about Roomba,” but everyone’s favorite robo-vacuum is generally programmed to avoid touching things other than the floor, and whatever’s on the floor - much to some owners’ chagrin. General-purpose robots that are able to solve lots of different tasks based on voice commands in spaces where humans also exist, is a lot harder. Rivian’s recent factory tour was a great reminder of that, but the use of industrial robotics is everywhere in manufacturing. Teaching robots what to do for repetitive tasks in controlled spaces where humans aren’t allowed isn’t easy, but it’s more or less a solved problem. Last week, we went to Google’s robotics labs in Mountain View to see how that’s set to change in the near future. The gap between the two - voice commands and autonomous robotics - has been vast, for a number of reasons. Robotics is evolving in leaps and bounds as well, as we explored in our Robotics event last month. Google can wait on hold for you, Siri can speak in a gender-neutral voice and Alexa can read you bedtime stories in your dead grandmother’s voice. If you’ve used a smart voice assistant such as Alexa, Siri and whatever-Google’s-smart-assistant-is-called, you’ll probably have noticed that the tech is getting smarter every day.
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