Vincent Vanhoucke, the new head of Google DeepMind’s robotics, discussed the company's focus on general-purpose methods that can be applied to various types of robots. He highlighted the role of generative AI in robotics, stating that it can provide common-sense reasoning and understanding of the everyday world. He also noted the importance of simulation in data collection and the potential of generative AI in bridging the simulation-to-reality gap.
Key takeaways:
- Google's DeepMind team has created a database of robotics functionality called Open X-Embodiment, in collaboration with 33 research institutes. The database, which is compared to ImageNet, contains over 500 skills and 150,000 tasks from 22 robot embodiments.
- DeepMind's head of robotics, Vincent Vanhoucke, believes that the key to advancing robotics is to solve the intelligence part, which is the main enabler of any meaningful process in real-world robotics.
- Vanhoucke also highlighted the importance of generative AI in robotics, stating that it can provide common-sense reasoning and understanding of the everyday world, which is crucial for robot planning and interactions.
- Simulation is considered a significant part of collecting data for analysis in robotics, but the challenge lies in bridging the simulation-to-reality gap. Generative AI can help in this aspect by generating assets and futures, allowing robots to "dream" and plan for the future.