The discussion revolves around the challenges of building robots that can adapt to changing environments, rather than robots that rely solely on prediction and mapping.
The speaker discusses the fascination with robots and their human-like qualities and the benefits of exploring human nature through robotics.
This podcast explores the different examples of things that people call robots and their level of agency, such as the ability to interact with the environment, converse with other agents, take responsibility, make decisions, and make plans. Real-world examples of robots include Roomba vacuum cleaners and self-driving cars.
Boston Dynamics’ robot moving at five miles an hour isn't as outlandish as some critics suggest, as cars on the road moving at 75-85 miles an hour are processing data, doing machine learning and figuring out the car's trajectory in real-time, making the robot’s task easier. Special-purpose automation is a cheaper and more elegant solution to solve customer's problems, given the leveraging of core IP at Boston Dynamics can provide a great set of applications to existing product lines and customers they serve for businesses in special purpose automation, which Hyundai is now part of, following its acquisition of Boston Dynamics from SoftBank.
The speaker discusses game theory and understanding people's social value orientation in order to program robots to make better decisions. Although simulating cameras is difficult, as the physics of the real world are known, game theory and understanding human behavior can help create robots that are less aggressive.
A robotics company was shut down by Disney after their designs were considered too off and fell victim to the uncanny valley phenomenon.
The emergence of robots that can mimic human behavior and characteristics raises the question: when does a robot become human? Physicist Michio Kaku argues that if a robot acts and looks like a human, it should be considered a human.
The ability to program robots to do a variety of things previously reserved for human labor is interesting, even though it raises concerns about job displacement. However, it is still a growing industry that has resulted in businesses avoiding it despite its potential.
