- The state of robotics currently,
is evolving extremely fast.
We are seeing robotic applications
in almost every sector of industry.
Everything from teaching, security,
agriculture, manufacturing.
We are starting to see robots
that are really going to help us as a culture.
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Hi, I'm Jon Battles,
Director of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence
at Amazon.com.
My role in the company is to do forward-looking research,
technology research,
to determine what's emerging in robotics,
and automation systems.
I get to meet a lot of interesting companies,
all working on new and leading-edge technologies.
The term robotics was originally
a very detailed, or very script industrial definition.
A robot had to have multiple access,
and perform certain functions.
However today, robots are being designed
to perform multiple use cases beyond industrial.
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Convergence is essentially many technologies
coming together to develop new systems.
And the robot is one of the best examples.
It's materials, it's new power,
it's new compute software sensors,
all of those technologies converging
to create a single product.
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Brain-inspired compute has been an initiative
in academia and industry for quite some time.
And that is trying to achieve
the performance of the human brain.
The human brain operates between 15 and 20 watts,
compared to our computers that consume maybe 200 watts.
The human brain also is the best example
that we have of high-density storage,
and the ability to perform
multiple computational processes simultaneously.
The brain is doing vision, voice,
thinking, cognitive,
motor control, all of that for 15 watts.
The next thing about the human brain
that is so impressive, is the neural net.
We have about 86 billion neurons.
That compute processing power
far exceeds what we're able to do in silicon right now.
We've been chasing the performance of the human brain
for quite some time.
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What's also important about the brain,
or the human architecture structure,
is back to biological computing.
Is actually DNA.
DNA memory has been basically in development
for about a decade and a half.
It's believed that three or four grams of pure DNA
could store all of the information in the world.
That's how dense DNA is.
So genetics, genetic engineering,
crispier,
and the ability to potentially create organic robots
looks like that technology is emerging, as well.
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Recently we're seeing
what's called 'Neuromorphic Processing.'
And Neuromorphic Processing is trying to emulate
the massive neuro network actually on a chip.
The brain can basically send a command
to 10,000 neurons concurrently, or simultaneously,
to that architecture, or that difference
in compute structure,
is what gives the brain the speed advantage,
and the power advantage.
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Optical Processors, they use photons,
as opposed to electrons.
The goal, or some of the preliminary research,
would indicate it might be 100 times faster,
and 10 times more power efficient
than our current CPU, or our current silicon architectures.
The goal is trying to increase speed,
and lower power consumption.
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Power has been a challenge in robots ever since
the idea came about.
We have relied on lead-acid batteries for a century.
The need now for mobile power
to actually have alternate power sources
beyond petroleum,
and some of the old traditional power sources that we have,
has really emerged in the last 10 years.
Everybody has heard of lithium.
And there are probably a dozen lithium ion formulations out.
Those developments are looking for high-power density,
and also cost and safety.
We're also seeing developments in super capacitors,
or super-caps.
The advantage there is that
they can charge extremely quickly.
We're seeing hydrogen fuel cell packs
available for the robots now.
Sodium quantum
glass batteries
are emerging into the market.
And on top of all that technology,
there's been a recent reintroduction
of a nuclear waste battery.
If you could take nuclear waste
and safely harness the energy from it,
could that become a power source, as well?
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AI is a really over-used term in robotics.
But AI is also very critical for the robot development,
and the robot future.
It is actually unlocked the robot functionality,
in terms of giving the robot sight,
computer vision,
recognition of objects,
its environment.
One of the most interesting developments
in artificial intelligence, I believe, in robotics,
is going to be with Generative and Intuitive Design.
Generative Design is a computer technology
that is using artificial intelligence
to actually create, or modify designs.
It can create thousands of iterations,
and create a design a human would never think about.
You can envision a robot that's been re-engineered
by artificial intelligence that could be twice as strong.
And it likely would be built by an additive robot.
One of the best examples is the Saudi Arabia Initiative,
which is to use generative design
to design new skyscrapers,
and to have additive robots actually build the skyscrapers.
So, an additive robot that is being programmed
by artificial intelligence
to build a generative designed robot.
That's what we can see right now in industry.
(upbeat music)
I think we're going to continue to see
all of this technical development just exponentially grow.
I think we're going to see big breakthroughs in power.
Clearly, the AI hardware compute
is going to continue to develop.
I think one of the biggest things we're going to see
is actually the applications and use case develop.
And that's where the robot becomes useful.
We have so many challenges facing us right now.
Forest fires have just been out of control
the past few years.
Could you imagine a forest-fighting crew of robots?
Robots in recycling, I think,
is gonna be a massive opportunity.
The entire recycle system
of the world needs to be rethought.
And I think robots are gonna be a key
to actually transforming that for us.
We've seen more technical innovation and more focus
in the last three years,
then we've seen in the prior hundred,
solving these robotic technical challenges.
What's exciting to me is,
what can we come up with next?
I think the emerging robot applications in industry,
in agriculture,
in healthcare,
they are going to free us up to do what humans do best,
and that's invent and create the next generation
of ideas for our society.
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