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Elon Musk's Open Source OpenAI: We're Working On a Robot For Your Household Chores (zdnet.com)

An anonymous reader writes from a report via ZDNet: OpenAI, the artificial-intelligence non-profit backed by Elon Musk, Amazon Web Services, and others, is working on creating a physical robot that performs household chores. In a blog post Monday, OpenAI leaders said they don't want to manufacture the robot itself, but "enable a physical robot [...] to perform basic housework." The company says it is "inspired" by DeepMind's work in the deep learning and reinforcement learning field of AI, as displayed by its AlphaGo victory over human Go masters. OpenAI says it wants to "train an agent capable enough to solve any game," noting that significant advances in AI will be required in order for that to happen. In May, the company released a public beta of a new Open Source gym for computer programmers working on AI. They also have plans to build an agent that can understand natural language and seek clarification when following instructions to complete a task. OpenAI plans to build new algorithms that can advance this field. Finally, OpenAI wants to measure its progress across games, robotics, and language-based tasks, which is where OpenAI's Gym Beta will come into play.

38 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Can I make one rob a bank as it's win win by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    Can I make one rob a bank as it's win win. I get the cash or I get in to club fed with room / board and a doctor.

    1. Re:Can I make one rob a bank as it's win win by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      There's an old proverb that says you might as well hang for a sheep as a lamb.

      So make one that beats eight fucking bells out of hucksters who get rich by loan sharking and then try to pass themselves off as disruptive techno-unicorns by pissing away their ill-gotten gains on stupid shit.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    2. Re:Can I make one rob a bank as it's win win by TheNarrator · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This is actually going to be the biggest problem with robots that actually work in the way that sci-fi envisioned. If people can train them to do illegal acts, there's going to be a heck of a lot of government regulation and only the government and only the specially licensed and vetted who will be allowed to train them.

    3. Re:Can I make one rob a bank as it's win win by Fwipp · · Score: 1

      No? They'll just arrest whomever told the robot to rob the bank.

    4. Re:Can I make one rob a bank as it's win win by Fwipp · · Score: 1

      Right, though.

  2. What about the data by NotInHere · · Score: 1

    When its about AI, open source is not enough in order to let people have an usable product. The open source license only covers the source code, not the training data. These data are much more important, and usually they have very restrictive licenses.

    1. Re:What about the data by evolutionary · · Score: 2

      Data will be open sourced as well. We already have a HUGE database with Open Street Map: https://www.openstreetmap.org/ if things continue in this way, there will be a LOT of useful data for AI, like other things it will start. of course an AI could also collect data from the Internet too. think Microsoft tried something like with concerning results: http://www.theverge.com/2016/3... Anyway, I think the data one way or another will be there.

      --
      "Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
  3. Not waiting for them by MouseR · · Score: 1

    They can't make a robot that's remotely capable of walking normally and opening a door. Not trusting any of that with my dishes. Less even FleshLight.

    1. Re:Not waiting for them by evolutionary · · Score: 1
      --
      "Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
    2. Re:Not waiting for them by Rei · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Asimo takes an awkward, brute-force-it approach involving lots of complex rules and experimentally-determined data tables to control what position to move each servo/actuator to at each stage of a step relative to what feedback it's getting from its sensors. Every time you change anything about the scenario - the texture of something, the weight of something, etc - you need to go back to modifying tables and potentially adding whole new rules.

      That is, of course, not how lifeforms learn to do things, and it's a serious hindrance to task diversity and development time. We don't work by saying, "bend this joint to 63.02 degrees, this one to 11.17 degrees and this one to 32.88 degrees because I've calculated that this will position your hand where it needs to be". We work kinematically - when there's a task we've never done before, we set our body in motion, get a rough estimate of where our body will end up, and increase or decrease forces, constantly re-evaluating how things our going. The more we do a task, the more our "neural net" gets used to what sort of forces will be needed to accomplish a given task and the less it needs to constantly re-evaluate and adjust. But the key is, we don't work by fixed positions and angles - we work through forces and velocities.

      If we want robots to be able to interact with their world the way we do, we need to give them the sort of paradigm that we use. Give them adjustable-tensioned cable "muscles", or at least a good emulation of them. Don't precalculate what angles everything needs to end up in. Do give them the most advanced neural net you can. Do give the neural net the visual or other sensor hardware needed to get an accurate sense of where its extremities are, how they're moving, and where other objects in the scene are and how they're moving (relative to itself). With these things, you'll end up with a task-flexible robot with natural movement. Precalculated angles and positions will always have comparatively poor task flexibility and unnatural movement.

      --
      Monkeywrench Ex Machina.
    3. Re:Not waiting for them by evolutionary · · Score: 1

      A valid argument: We do use relationships. Number are an attempt at short cut to reproducing things. You look at all the precise movements some we recognize/respect (Dance, athletes,musicians and the like) and we have other everyday things like walking we don't fully appreciate nor fully understand the complex motions, so much so it takes years sometimes to learn them. Robots + AI are an attempt to create in essence a shortcut to creating a person we don't have to have the same regard for as a human ( as far as we know). Our limited understanding of these things of course lead to poor reproductions. But you gotta, walk before running right? We are far from perfect, but recently developments i think show we will get there, and it may well be in sight. Asimo is not as flexible as a proper organic creature, but considering the lack of learns to learn working, and lifting, he's doing pretty well. He's got the balancing thing fairly well down. Someone just need to install some penumatic air pump muscles, and we have huge (if expensive) progress to making our little Asimo "a real boy".

      --
      "Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
  4. any game? by the_other_one · · Score: 3, Funny

    Would you like to play Global Thermonuclear War?

    --
    134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
    1. Re:any game? by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 2

      What side do you want?

      1. United States
      2. USRR
      3. United Kingdom
      4. France
      5. China
      6. India
      7. Pakistan
      8. North Korea
      9. Israel

    2. Re:any game? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      10. Skynet

    3. Re:any game? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      You missed of Bel@#l.,&^
      no carrier

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    4. Re:any game? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      P.S. And South Afr

      BRB, door. Or rather, several large men where the door was.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    5. Re:any game? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      P.P.S. I think you meant USSR, not USRR. Even if you did, it's wrong - they don't exist any m0.:@P';

      Hey, knock it off you assholes. That's not a secret.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  5. I'd buy one by somenickname · · Score: 1

    If the cost of the robot is cheaper than the cost of a cleaning lady over the warranty period of the robot, why wouldn't you buy it? If a $5000 cleaning robot was introduced with a 5 year warranty, you'd be crazy not to buy it. That's way cheaper than a cleaning lady and it's something that a middle class person could probably afford and justify. If useful robots genuinely become available to the middle class, it's going to be a huge win for society.

    1. Re:I'd buy one by bored_engineer · · Score: 3, Funny

      . . .kids to clean their houses.

      Ignoring the rest of your post, it's obvious from these five words that you don't have kids.

    2. Re:I'd buy one by NEDHead · · Score: 1

      Once they make it illegal to clean your own house (and hide whatever you are trying to hide from the NSA/FBI) you will have no choice but to own a (backdoored) Certified House Inspection (I meant cleaning) Robot

    3. Re:I'd buy one by EvilSS · · Score: 1

      ...friends with kids don't pay their kids anywhere near $5000 over 5 years for their kids to clean their houses.

      Yea but upkeep and maintenance on kids is massively higher than $1K per year, and they don't even include a warranty or service plan as an option.

      --
      I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
    4. Re:I'd buy one by mark-t · · Score: 1

      His statement, I think, is still true. Unless one is an extremely overgenerous parent that has money to burn.

      In terms of allowance, I think the most any of my kids ever earned iover the course of a year was maybe a few hundred bucks. Over 5 years that wouldn't come anywhere close to 5k.

    5. Re:I'd buy one by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

      only with trump. The DEM wants to keep the Mexican immigrants working under the table.

  6. With EditorDavid gone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The front page just flies with new bullshit.

    GO CIA GO CIA GO CIA

  7. Re:Hey great by mark-t · · Score: 1

    More hipster tech that I can't use

    Unless you don't live in a residence that requires you to do any housework (because presumably, it is already getting done by someone else), the only reasons I can imagine that you would be unable to use (ie, "can't use", as you put it) this tech is if you either actually sincerely enjoy housework, or else are someone who otherwise does not do their own housework at least somewhat begrudgingly.

    Both of these reasons would put you in the "very atypical" category.

  8. Re:I am so sick of hearing about this guy by NEDHead · · Score: 1

    Rockets? Paypal? Electric cars? Residential solar systems?

  9. Hired Girl, Inc, by perry64 · · Score: 1

    It's got to be named "Hired Girl, Inc." Yes, it's slightly sexist, but with with all the anti-Islamist sentiment, "Aladdin Auto-Engineering" is definitely out.

  10. Followed by... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    To be followed by the latest fat at the gym: dustersize, wherein you carry out the motions of dusting.

    That's the basic idea behind kettle bells--you're simulating physical labor in a formalized way. You could spend money on the robot and the gym, or you could just CLEAN YOUR FUCKING HOUSE and GET YOUR FAT ASS MOVING.

  11. AlphaGO Victory! by ememisya · · Score: 1

    Did anybody notice how AlphaGO's avatar changed in the last game? Was that also a decision made by the AI? ;)

  12. It's a trap! by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 1

    First he's going to get you to pay for an electric car. Then he's going to get you to pay for a household robot. Then he's going to get you to pay for solar panels to power the electric car and the autonomous AI robot.

    What do you call a million independently powered autonomous AI household robots driving Tesla cars?

    Elon Musk's private army!

    Also, I have a newsletter you might be interested in.

    ---

    Ok ok, I obviously didn't have enough random capital letters and exclamation marks to have a newsletter. Still... Robot army! You heard it here first!

  13. Rosie Jetson? Let's get real. by RandCraw · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What chores will Rosie do? Cooking? No, way too complex for decades yet: gathering foods from fridge and pantry, opening a variety of containers, exracting indredients of many shapes and consistencies in proper amounts (and avoiding those that are spoiled), prepping each (peeling, chopping, grating, sauteeing), and synchronized cooking before dishing up. All this without burning down the house or spilling and then having to clean up the messes. Not to mention the cleaning up of utensils and pans thereafter.

    Cleaning? Not even. Vacuuming, dusting, tidying, navigating a dynamic ever changing floorplan and tabletops, without toppling and destroying all those expensive knick-knacks or running over the cat, and of course, not making an ever greater mess.

    Washing the dog? Nursing the baby? Cleaning the windows? Mopping the floors? Beating the rugs? Washing the car? Mowing the yard? Clearing the gutters? Weeding the garden? Trimming the hedge? Edging the sidewalk? Taking the dog for a walk? Taking out the garbage? Yeahhhh...

    Which subset of these chores does OpenAI choose for their Rosie Jetson? 'Cause she can't do them all. And how many Rosies can you sell if she costs more than a Segway but only can load the dishwasher and fetch beer from the fridge?

    Reality check: an affordable domestic robot that's actually useful is hellaciously ambitious, especially when no robot on earth can do any of these things yet, not at any price.

  14. Re:Rosie Jetson? Let's get real. by Bobbox1980 · · Score: 2

    To be fair, guys working on making working robot hands are not connected with the same groups that are working on bipedal motion and those same groups aren't working on visual recognition, etc. If Musk can unite these different projects he stands a good chance of making a robot for house chores.

  15. Actual robots for actual chores? by Narcocide · · Score: 3, Interesting

    We already have robots to wash our laundry and dishes and floors. What we really need are robots that can safely fold clean laundry, stack clean dishes, and load washing machines and dishwashers and take out the trash. Bonus points if they can also kill pests and act as a guard dog.

  16. I want one by jonwil · · Score: 1

    If someone can make a robot that can clean my apartment good enough for my landlord not to get mad at rent inspections, I will be first in line...

    1. Re:I want one by jonwil · · Score: 2

      Its a standard practice here in Australia. Landlords have rent inspections every couple of months to make sure you haven't trashed the place (and to look for things that need fixing and stuff)

  17. Re:Hey great by ranton · · Score: 1

    He means he won't be able to afford it.

    --
    -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
  18. Re:Rosie Jetson? Let's get real. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

    A lot of these tasks are possible if you make them a bit more robot friendly. Like washing windows, it's not too difficult if you design your building to be washed by robots. As a retrofit it might be expensive, but for new high rise buildings it makes sense.

    About 80% of vacuuming can already be done by a robot, which saves a lot of human effort. Stairs were a problem but now they are so cheap you can afford to have one for each floor. Rugs don't need to be beaten if you have a good enough vacuum with beater brush. The same tech already exists to mop floors, although you do have to handle the liquids yourself. With a simplified tap interface and cleaning chemical packs that could be overcome.

    Washing the car... Robots have been doing that since the 70s at least, when was the first automatic car wash invented? You could probably get 90% of that cleaning done with a robotic arm if you really wanted one at home.

    Rubbish disposal seems like a gap in the market. All the components are there, robots that can navigate a home and interact with well defined objects. Price is probably the issue.

    As for cooking, we already have pre-prepared meals that only require very simple cooking. Put some stuff in an oven, try a few things, throw it all together. If they could package it such that the oven reads a barcode with cooking instructions, does some basic handling and spits out a completed meal I'd be interested in that. Yes, I really am that bad at cooking.

    Musk tends to look at problems this way. Auto-pilot in his cars isn't really a full "robot car", but it does a lot of the work and is improving. When he talks about AI, he is probably thinking of new ways to monetize the AI developed for his cars and future expectations of what it will be capable of.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  19. Re:I am so sick of hearing about this guy by eepok · · Score: 1

    No, the goal posts are always there: You get praised when you successfully accomplish the goal you say you're going to accomplish.

    SpaceX said they're going to do commercially viable space travel and cargo delivery. Still workin' on it.
    Tesla said they're going to sell THE EV for the masses and fund that endeavor by first selling EV sports cars to the rich. Well, they've eaten up a massive amount of masses' tax money to sell EVs to the rich and there's still not EV for those masses.
    SolarCity, funny enough, is being bought by Tesla because it has failed to be financially solvent.
    And the Hyperloop is 100% pure science fiction. And bad science fiction at that.

    All promises, no delivery, and still praised for "vision" and "innovation".