- I'm Henny Admoni, I'm a professor of robotics.
Today, I'll be answering your questions from Twitter.
This is "Robot Support."
Down low.
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@agg26243 asks, "Why are people so obsessed
"with making humanlike robots?
"Y'all need to chill."
I don't disagree.
Humanlike robots are great.
Usually a robot that's not shaped like a human
is more robust and more capable of doing
the task it needs to do.
One example of a humanoid robot is Sophia the Robot.
Some people would call this category of robots androids.
Sophia is a highly realistic robot,
but if you've ever watched Sophia,
you know that there's still a gap
between what the robot is doing
and what we actually expect from people.
This is often called "the uncanny valley,"
very humanlike robots can fall into that uncanny valley
and make people pretty uncomfortable.
@furbyfactor asks, "How do you program
"personality into a robot?"
It is hard to define exactly what makes a personality.
Robots are just programs.
For example, if somebody makes a funny joke,
should the robot laugh or should the robot roll its eyes?
This all has to be created in software.
When we're programming robots, what we're doing
is building a set of instructions.
If you run into an obstacle, back up.
To get more complex behavior, you can't rely
just on pre-specified rules.
That's where something like machine learning comes in.
In machine learning, we are building algorithms
which are basically just sets of instructions
that can, based on the information that they're getting,
adapt to themselves to learn the right kinds of output.
@krysteenie asks, "Can you pick up a single M&M
"with a robot arm?"
It kind of depends on the robot arm.
With this one, it's gonna be a little hard.
Some robots are only robot arms
and those are called manipulators, like this one right here.
Ah, so close.
This kind of fine motor manipulation
is really challenging for robots.
Robots don't have the level of motion
and movement that we do in our fingers.
The other thing that we use in our fingers
that robots don't have is a sense of touch
that allows us to tell when
we are actually gripping something so that we can know
that it's able to be picked up.
This box has fiducial markers on it.
These are essentially QR codes that allow the robot camera
to recognize what orientation and position
the box is in.
It's supposed to make it easier for the robot
to pick up the box autonomously.
@SEO_Chase asks, "Do you think robots
"will one day take over all of our jobs?"
The real benefit of robots is taking over
the three Ds, the dull, dirty, and dangerous jobs
that we probably don't want human beings
to be doing anyway.
People are working on underwater robots
that can detect underwater landmines.
Some people have worked on robots
that can go into nuclear facilities after an accident
and shut off different valves.
But I do hope that robots are able to make
people better at their jobs and free people up
to do things that they're actually good at
and they actually want to do.
@bigtechprof asks, "What is Elon's goal
"for the Tesla Optimus robot?"
Elon Musk does not consult with me,
but my understanding is that he's looking to build
a general purpose home robot, one that can do everything
from cleaning up your room to unloading your dishwasher.
To design a robot that's capable of doing
more than just one thing takes a ton of work
and a ton of sophistication.
Tesla is pretty well positioned to do so.
Their autonomous driving division has a huge
computer vision capability, and they're building
the kinds of batteries that would be needed
to power this sophisticated a machine
for a long period of time.
@DisplayYourCV says, "What are the major problems
"in the field of robotics today?"
There are a few big challenges that we face today
when we're trying to get robots out into the real world.
The first one is perception.
How do we get robots to see and hear and interact
with their environment and actually understand
what it is that they're looking at?
Another one is actuation: how do we get robots
to move around in ways that allow them
to achieve their tasks?
And finally, another big problem is intelligence:
how do we make our robots smart enough
to plan the right kind of action to do
in order to achieve what they're trying to?
One major area of interest to me
is how we get robots to interact with people,
like personal home robots or healthcare robots
that are helping nurses and doctors.
@alicejanetaylor asks, "I just wanna know
"how Boston Robotics plans to deal with humans
"who think pushing robots over is hilarious?"
There are lots of people who are doing research
on how robots should respond to various forms of abuse.
One that I like the most is that when a robot
is being kicked by kids in a shopping mall,
researchers found that if it just rolls
to the nearest adult, the kids will stop.
@alaviers asks, "Have you ever had
"a genuine social interaction with a robot?"
Although I can't say that I have had
a deep social interaction with a robot,
[Kuri chirps]
I can say that I have felt social reactions to robots.
For example, this is Kuri.
Kuri is really cute.
If you pet Kuri's head, it'll purr.
[Kuri purrs]
And that kind of response actually does generate
some social interaction for me.
A lot of people are working on social robots
to help people in the home or in elder care situations,
and in these cases, it's really important
that the robot is able to connect socially with people.
For example, it should tell when somebody's frustrated
or not wanting to take a bite of food
or somebody's tired and should just go to bed.
Detecting these social cues is still really challenging
to build into an algorithm,
and that's a huge part of social robotics.
@TomaszKosmider asks, "How #AI is being used in #Robotics?"
AI and robotics have a lot of overlap.
AI is all about how you get systems to act intelligently.
Robotics is about taking devices and putting them
out in the real world and having them move around
and interact with the environment or with people.
So in order for robots to work, we really need
the AI to support them, but robotics
is more than just the AI that supports them,
it's also about the mechanics of building
a physical system and the electronics
of developing safe circuitry.
Robotics and AI, big overlap, but still two separate fields.
@joemorone asks, "Self-driving cars
"are already on the road.
"When there's a problem, how do we understand
"the decisions AI makes?'
Self-driving cars are essentially a type of robot
moving around in the world and making intelligent decisions
based on what they're perceiving.
These algorithms that robots are using
for decision making are sort of like black boxes.
Inputs come in in the form of perceptions or knowledge
and then outputs come out in the form of actuation.
The robot decides to merge or decides to stop.
But that black box can be very, very complicated,
and because of that, we need something
like Explainable AI in order to back out the processes
that the robot used to get to where it was going.
@EEWorldOnline asks, "What types of sensors
"are used in robots?"
Some robots have cameras like this one
that can detect not just color images
but also depth using infrared.
Other robots have physical sensors, like bump sensors
or capacitive sensors that respond to touch.
Time of light sensors or other kinds of ways, excuse me,
my robot is escaping.
The original Roombas also had bump sensors,
that's how they knew they were running into something.
Lots of robots also use audio sensors.
Hey Kuri.
[Kuri chirps]
Like that.
@247pressrelease asks, "What are swarm robots
"and how are they learning from insects?"
If you watched the Olympics, you've seen
these beautiful displays of lights floating in space.
Those are swarm robots.
Swarm robots are groups of robots that operate
in a collective, they have intelligence
that's distributed across the entire system
so that no one of them has the central information.
These are designed and inspired by the way
insect swarms operate and it's just one example
of the ways that robotics has been inspired by biology.
@RoboTricks1, "How Six-Axis Industrial Robots work?"
Six-axis robots are called that
because they can move in six different directions.
Here's an example of of a six-axis robot.
It can move in three directions of physical space,
left and right,
[robot whirs]
up and down,
[robot whirs]
and forward and back.
[robot whirs]
They can also move in three directions
of orientation space: pitch,
[robot whirs]
yaw,
[robot whirs]
and roll.
These robots work by deciding
how to move every joint in the kinematic chain
in order to get the robot hand, which we call
an end effector, to the right position.
This process of calculating how the joints
will need to move to put the end effector
in the right spot is called inverse kinematics.
@SpiCodeX asks, "Do you know who invented
"the first robot in history?
"What was it?"
So what makes a robot, anyway?
It needs to be able to sense its environment,
plan using that sensor input in some smart way,
and then act on the world.
So given those criteria for being a robot,
the first broadly accepted real robot was Shakey.
It was invented in the mid-60s in California.
It was a robot that had a big television camera on top
and it had wheels and it could take instructions
and roll around a different obstacle course with objects
in its way, that was the foundation
of a lot of the robotics that we do today.
@edgeronia asks, "What if the only thing
"that's preventing a full-on global robot takeover
"are a handful of CAPTCHA servers?"
CAPTCHA servers are servers that run
those kind of annoying little answers that you have to give
to prove that you're not a robot.
You have to identify pictures that have
particular objects in them.
What you're actually doing with those CAPTCHA servers
is training intelligent systems.
On the back end, companies are using that data
to try to build better classifiers
for things like traffic lights or bicycles.
We've seen lots of movies where robots
are the evil beings that are taking over from humans.
The reality is we're still really far
from any notion of robots being capable enough
to operate in environments in order to have
any kind of impact like that.
@localplumbinghe asks, "Could 'Star Wars' droids be real?"
We are pretty far from robots like C3PO and R2D2.
They are showing super advanced versions
of the technologies that researchers
are working on right now.
Now these are two very different approaches
and they serve different purposes.
C3PO which is a humanoid robot,
it's shaped like a person, it walks upright,
it uses language that people use to communicate,
including the variety of different accents
and dialects that people use, and then we have R2D2.
It's explicitly not humanoid, kind of looks like a trashcan,
it uses wheels instead of legs to move around.
The language that it speaks is beeps and boops,
and humans have learned the robot's language.
That's not something that we see today.
Most of the time, we are getting robots
to adapt to people and not the other way around.
@steveboyl3 asks, "Why do we need robotic delivery
"cool boxes driving around slowly
"getting in everyone's way?
"Are we just making robots for the sake of making robots?"
The idea behind delivery robots is to make it
more convenient for people to acquire things
like groceries or delivery food.
The idea of these robots is worthy, but right now,
the reality of their implementation
is that they move around pretty slow
and they often do block traffic.
So the technology hasn't yet caught up to the reality.
We don't want to make robots for the sake
of making robots, but I think a lot of the times,
we're building robots because we're trying
to make life a little bit easier
or a little bit more equal for people.
@cif_kh asks, "Could a real-life 'Westworld'
"be in our future?"
It takes a lot to make a robot that is indistinguishable
from a human being.
This is because humans are super sophisticated.
We have dozens of muscles just in our face
to make facial expressions.
Getting a robot to be capable of that
requires dozens of motors, and that's not really
a realistic thing right now.
I'd say we're still a pretty long way off
from these kinds of hyper-realistic robots
like in "Westworld."
@ASMEJournals asks, "What are the nanobots?"
Nanobots are tiny robots, that's what the word nano means
in their name.
They are designed for a variety of applications
including things like medicine going into the human body.
Because they're so small, it's hard to get electronics
that will fit into them.
Often, they're designed to respond
to the chemical environment, for example,
something that you might find in the human body.
It's actually this really interesting connection
between robotics and chemistry and material science.
@MetrologicallyS, "How is robot simulation software used
"to program robots virtually?"
Simulation is a huge part of what we do
in robot development.
We do a lot of our testing in simulation
so that we know that when we bring those
into the real world, that they are more likely to work.
Simulations can be limited, though.
You need to replicate real-world physics
including friction and different kinds of forces
and wind shear.
That can be exceedingly computationally expensive.
Simulations are still easier than putting the robots
in the real world, and so they're still
a hugely popular tool in robotics.
@BlileyTech asks, "How are #robots used
"in #space exploration?"
These robots are being deployed autonomously
to roll around, collect samples, take measurements,
and do all of the scientific data finding
that we need to do to understand what's in space.
We've had several robots sent to Mars.
Here at Carnegie Mellon University, where I work,
we have a huge project on building robots
that are capable of operating autonomously on the moon.
There's a robot that's actually being developed
and tested here right now and we're hoping
to send it into space soon.
@Distrelec asks, "How are cobots helping
"to transform industry?"
A cobot is a collaborative robot specifically designed
to work with human beings.
One big area that people are looking at for cobots
right now is in shared manufacturing,
so you have a person who is building something
in a factory and the robot is able to do things
like fetch materials for them
or hold parts while they do the fine motor manipulation.
In this case, the robot is collaborative
for a few reasons.
One is that it's sharing space and tools
with human beings, but another is that it's actually
being trained by a human being, so it's learning
how to do this from a person,
and that's a big part of collaboration
is this kind of sharing of information.
@wizkellicap says, "Agricultural robots a growing trend?"
In fact, it is.
There's a huge problem right now
in growing enough food and distributing it
to get to all the people in the world,
and people are looking to robotics to help solve that.
Robots that can roll down a field of crops
and tell a farmer whether the crop is healthy
or needs different kinds of nutrients,
or robots that can very quickly sort
through strawberry plants to tell the farmer
which ones are gonna grow well and which ones
need to be thrown out.
The hope is that these agricultural robots
are going to be able to help farmers
increase their impact and make farming
in general more sustainable.
Those are all the questions for today.
Thanks so much for all the interesting questions,
and thanks for watching "Robot Support."
Shh, she's sleeping.
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