The Indicator from Planet Money It's actually really hard to make a robot, guys
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May 12, 2025 The podcast dives into the intriguing marriage of artificial intelligence and robotics, spotlighting Tesla's humanoid robot, Optimus. It discusses innovative systems from Stanford's IRIS Laboratory where robots learn through demonstration. Listeners will learn about the gaps between ambitious expectations and the current capabilities of AI-powered robots in everyday tasks, such as laundry and ice cream making. The conversation also highlights the hurdles in robot training, emphasizing the unique complexities of developing effective robotic solutions.
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Teaching Robots with Trail Mix
- The IRIS Laboratory at Stanford uses AI similarly to chatbots to train a robot arm through repetition.
- The robot learned to scoop specific trail mix nuts after being shown the task repeatedly.
AI Robots Are Not Perfect Yet
- AI-powered robots often get confused and make mistakes, requiring human cleanup.
- This limits their reliability and widespread use despite impressive demonstrations like folding laundry.
Robotics Lacks Training Data
- Robotics lacks the vast training data that chatbots have from the internet.
- Collecting enough robotic training data by humans would take an impractical 100,000 years.