Over a decade old, Honda's little humanoid robot astonishingly doesn't seem obsolete
Honda's ASIMO humanoid robot is retiring. For the last 20 years, ASIMO had been performing at the Honda showroom in Tokyo, Japan, but these regular demonstrations are now at an end. We've known for a while that this was coming—Honda announced back in 2018 that it was halting ASIMO development in favor of working on robots with more practical applications, like robots for elder care and disaster relief. But what blows me away about ASIMO, even now, is just how impressive it still is.
[...] This little robot really did set a (still somewhat aspirational) standard, especially relative to other humanoid robots, which have only within the last few years been able to match and then significantly surpass ASIMO's performance, if not its looks.
[...] But Honda has more recently seemed to realize that they could take the ASIMO platform and the philosophy of humanoid robotics that it represents only so far, and as of 2018 the company shifted development to a clearly ASIMO-inspired but much more robust robot called E2-DR.
The short article has some nice videos of ASIMO:
Performance video from 2010
History of Honda robotics
2017 demo
E2-DR demo
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In sci-fi films, the rise of humanlike artificial intelligence often comes hand in hand with a physical platform, such as an android or robot. While the most advanced AI language models so far seem mostly like disembodied voices echoing from an anonymous data center, they might not remain that way for long. Some companies like Google, Figure, Microsoft, Tesla, Boston Dynamics, and others are working toward giving AI models a body. This is called "embodiment," and AI chipmaker Nvidia wants to accelerate the process.
[...] To that end, Nvidia announced Project GR00T, a general-purpose foundation model for humanoid robots. As a type of AI model itself, Nvidia hopes GR00T (which stands for "Generalist Robot 00 Technology" but sounds a lot like a famous Marvel character) will serve as an AI mind for robots, enabling them to learn skills and solve various tasks on the fly. In a tweet, Nvidia researcher Linxi "Jim" Fan called the project "our moonshot to solve embodied AGI in the physical world."
[...] According to Fan, Project GR00T is a cornerstone of his newly founded GEAR Lab (short for "Generalist Embodied Agent Research"). During his time at Nvidia, Fan has specialized in using simulations of physical worlds to train AI models, and now that approach is extending to robotics. "At GEAR, we are building generally capable agents that learn to act skillfully in many worlds, virtual and real," wrote Fan in a tweet. "Join us on the journey to land on the moon."
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday April 26 2022, @12:02PM (1 child)
It's garbage like pretty much all robots. Which is why we don't have a humanoid non-toy robot in 80% of households.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2022, @08:33PM
And who the fucks writes breathy press releases and calls it "news". It's bad even for Soylent news? Garbage on garbage piled deep. Nom nom nom.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday April 26 2022, @01:39PM (3 children)
It may have some inspiration from ASIMO, but it lacks the "appeal". It looks more like an adult male than like a kid.
I do wonder to what extent is has "brains on board", and how much it's a telefactor. That would determine it's usefulness, especially in areas where radio signals might be blocked.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Touché) by maxwell demon on Tuesday April 26 2022, @08:15PM (2 children)
Well, “DR” stands for “Disaster Response”. I think if you need help in a disaster, cuteness of the helper is your least worry.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2022, @08:36PM (1 child)
Although... one should be prepared in the eventuality they are. For any lady cops out there, it never hurts to offer a BJ, that's all I'm saying.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2022, @09:59PM
That would be from your own personal experience offering guys BJs? You seem so sure...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2022, @04:56PM (1 child)
Let him loose in a Sunbeam factory so he can fuck all the toasters, then we'll have a bunch of baby robotic toasters.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday April 29 2022, @03:22AM
Or this guy [youtu.be].