TechCrunch: Pieter Abbeel and Ken Goldberg on Generative AI Applications
“Over the past few months, we’ve covered a smattering of generative AI-related stories in Actuator. Take last week’s video of Agility using generative AI to tell Digit what to do with a simple verbal cue. I’ve also begun speaking to founders and researchers about potential applications in the space. The sentiment shifted quite quickly from “this is neat” to “this could be genuinely useful.”
Learning has, of course, been a giant topic in robotics for decades now. It also, fittingly, seems to be where much of the potential generative AI research is heading. What if, say, a robot could predict all potential outcomes based on learning? Or how about eliminating a lot of excess coding by simply telling a robot what you want it to do? Exciting, right?
When I’m fascinated by a topic in the space, I always do the same thing: find much smarter people to berate with questions. It’s gotten me far in life. This time out, our lucky guests are a pair of UC Berkeley professors who have taught me a ton about the space over the years (I recommend getting a few for your rolodex).”