This post is not about research or developing software for robots. Instead it is some tips on how to go about building robots for mass deployment and how to leverage those deployed robots for improving your product. The four tips are straightforward but I explain them more below. Use other people’s supply chain scale wherever … Continue reading Tips For Building and Deploying Robots

I have recently blogged about my three laws of robotics. Here I talk about my three laws of Artificial Intelligence, about how people perceive AI systems, about how they operate in the world and how difficult it is to make them general purpose in any sense. When an AI system performs a task, human observers … Continue reading Rodney Brooks’ Three Laws of Artificial Intelligence

Here are some of the things I’ve learned about robotics after working in the field for almost five decades.  In honor of Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, my two boyhood go-to science fiction writers, I’m calling them my three laws of robotics. The visual appearance of a robot makes a promise about what it … Continue reading Rodney Brooks’ Three Laws of Robotics

There are three things that the existence of LLMs, such as ChatGPT-3.5 and ChatGPT-4 make us have to rethink. At different times and amongst different communities they have all had lots of AI researchers talking about them, often with much passion. Here are three things to note: The Turing Test has evaporated. Searle’s Chinese Room … Continue reading Three Things That LLMs Have Made Us Rethink

Generative Pre-trained Transformer models (GPTs) are now all the rage and have inspired op-eds being written by everyone from Henry Kissinger (WSJ) to Noam Chomsky (NYTimes) in just the last month. That sure is some hype level. Way back in the early history of GPTs, January 1st this year, I wrote briefly about them and said: Calm down … Continue reading What Will Transformers Transform?

Just over ten years ago, on April 5th, 2012 to be precise, I took my first ride in a self-driving car, from Google X, in a research unit that has now become Waymo. There was someone sitting in the driver seat, but he had his feet and hands off the controls. We left Google and … Continue reading No front seat occupants; adventures in autonomous ride services

So far my life has been rather extraordinary in that through great underserved luck1 I have been present at, or nearby to, many of the defining technological advances in computer science, Artificial Intelligence, and robotics, that now in 2021 are starting to dominate our world. I knew and rubbed shoulders2 with many of the greats, those … Continue reading The Origin of Robot Arm Programming Languages

[This is the fourth part of a four part essay–here is Part I.] We have been talking about building an Artificial General Intelligence agent, or even a Super Intelligence agent. How are we going to get there?  How are we going get to ECW and SLP? What do researchers need to work on now? In … Continue reading [FoR&AI] Steps Toward Super Intelligence IV, Things to Work on Now

[This is the third part of a four part essay–here is Part I.] If we are going to develop an Artificial Intelligence system as good as a human, an ECW or SLP say, from Part II of this essay, and if we want to get beyond that, we need to understand what current AI can … Continue reading [FoR&AI] Steps Toward Super Intelligence III, Hard Things Today

[This is the second part of a four part essay–here is Part I.] As we (eventually…) start to plot out how to build Artificial General Intelligence there is going to be a bifurcation in the path ahead.  Some will say that we must choose which direction to take. I argue that the question is complex … Continue reading [FoR&AI] Steps Toward Super Intelligence II, Beyond the Turing Test