Hod Lipson, professor of Mechanical Engineering at Columbia University, talks about the future of robots with creativity, self-awareness, and intelligence. The podcast explores advancements in AI and robotics, challenges in achieving embodied AI, and the potential of self-aware machines. It also discusses proprioception in robots and the frustrations in battery development. Plus, there's an opportunity to participate in dialogue courses on understanding AI.
Embodied AI will revolutionize industries and enable machines to interact with the world in ways humans cannot.
Robots need a deeper understanding of the physical world and the ability to generate actions in response to sensory inputs.
Deep dives
The Next Wave of AI: Embodied AI and Robotics
The podcast discusses the next wave of AI, which is embodied AI or robotics. It explains that this wave involves AI with physical bodies that can move and interact with the world. The speaker highlights the challenges of embodied AI, such as the need for better physics simulations and formulating physical interaction problems. The podcast also emphasizes that mistakes are more costly in the physical world, making data collection and energy usage more challenging. Despite the obstacles, the speaker believes that embodied AI will revolutionize industries and enable machines to interact with the world in ways humans cannot.
Machine Learning and Deep Learning in Robotics
The podcast explores the impact of machine learning and deep learning on robotics. It explains how these technologies have replaced traditional symbolic processing methods in machine vision and control. Reinforcement learning and deep learning have significantly transformed the field of robotics. However, the podcast acknowledges that there are still challenges in combining sensory information, visual perception, and common sense knowledge in robots. The speaker highlights the need for robots to have a deeper understanding of the physical world and possess the ability to generate actions in response to sensory inputs.
Self-awareness in Robots
The podcast delves into the concept of self-awareness in robots. The speaker believes that self-awareness is the next important milestone in AI development. Self-awareness enables machines to anticipate their future states and understand their own existence. The podcast discusses how robots are currently learning to predict their own states and bodies in short-term scenarios. The speaker envisions a future where robots possess advanced self-awareness, capable of imagining themselves in the long-term future. However, measuring and defining self-awareness in robots remains a complex challenge
Embracing the Different Intelligences
The podcast emphasizes the need to embrace the different forms of intelligence that robots and AI will possess. The speaker warns against the tendency to anthropomorphize machines and compare them to humans. Instead, humans should recognize the distinct ways in which machines can perceive and interact with the world. The speaker encourages a more open-minded and inclusive approach to intelligence, acknowledging that robots will have their unique ways of being intelligent. The podcast concludes with optimism about the collaboration and complementarity between humans and machines in the future.
Robots - embedded AI - haven't gotten the adulation that large language models have received for their recent breakthroughs, but when they do, it will be thanks in large part to Hod Lipson, professor of Mechanical Engineering at Columbia University, where he directs the Creative Machines Lab, which pioneers new ways to make machines that create, and machines that are creative. He received both DARPA and NSF faculty awards as well as being named Esquire magazine’s “Best & Brightest”, and one of Forbes’ “Top 7 Data scientists in the world.” His TED talk on building robots that are self-aware is one of the most viewed on AI, and in January 2023 he was centrally featured by the New York Times in their piece “What’s ahead for AI.” He is co-author of the award-winning books “Fabricated: The New World of 3D printing” and “Driverless: Intelligent cars and the road ahead”. Hod is a deeply passionate communicator who is driven to help people understand what’s going on with #AI and #robotics.
In part 1 we talk about our future with #robots that might be creative, self-aware, sentient, or generally intelligent.
All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines.