For the next several weeks, TechCrunch’s robotics newsletter, Actuator, will be running Q&As with some of the top minds in robotics. Subscribe here for future updates.
Part 1: Matthew Johnson-Roberson of CMU
This week, we have two ferrets. Russ Tedrake and Max Bajracharya of the Toyota Research Institute split the work. Tedrake is vice president of TRI’s Robotics Research division. He is also MIT’s Toyota Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, and Aero/Astro. Bajracharya is TRI’s senior vice president for Robotics. He previously served as the Institute’s Robotics Director.
What role(s) will genetic artificial intelligence play in the future of robotics?
Russ Tedrake: Generative AI has the potential to bring revolutionary new capabilities to robotics. Not only can we communicate with robots in natural language, but connecting to Internet-scale language and image data gives robots a much more powerful understanding and reasoning about the world. But we are still in the early days. more work is needed to understand how to build knowledge of image and language into the types of natural intelligence needed to make robots truly useful.
What are your thoughts on the humanoid form factor?
Max Bajracharya: The places where robots might help humans tend to be designed for humans, so these robots will likely need to fit and work in those environments. However, that doesn’t mean they have to get a humanoid agent (two arms, hands with five fingers, two legs and a head). simply, they must be compact, safe, and capable of human-like tasks.
After manufacturing and warehouses, what is the next big category for robotics?
Max Bajracharya: I see a lot of potential and need in agriculture, but the outdoor and unstructured nature of much of the work is very challenging. Toyota Ventures has invested in a few companies like Burro and Agtonomy, which are making good progress with autonomy in some initial agricultural applications.
How far are true general purpose robots?
Russ Tedrake: I am optimistic that the field can make steady progress from the relatively specialized robots we have today to more general purpose robots. It’s not clear how long that will last, but flexible automation, high-mix manufacturing, agricultural robots, point-of-service robots, and possibly new industries we haven’t yet imagined will benefit from increasing levels of autonomy and increasingly general capabilities.
Will home robots take off (beyond the gaps) in the next decade?
Max Bajracharya: Homes remain a difficult challenge for robots because they are so diverse and unstructured, and consumers are price sensitive. The future is hard to predict, but the field of robotics is moving very quickly.
What major robotics story/trend isn’t getting enough coverage?
Russ Tedrake: We hear a lot these days about genetic artificial intelligence and the incredible progress and investment in hardware. Many of these successes, however, have been made possible by the quiet revolution we’ve seen in simulation. Just a few years ago, most roboticists would have said it was impossible to train or test a computer vision system in simulation. it is now standard practice. Some researchers are still skeptical that we could develop a control system for, say, a dexterous hand entirely in simulation and make it work in reality, but the trend is increasingly moving that way. Big investments from companies like Nvidia, Google DeepMind and TRI are helping to do that.
