It seems like artificial intelligence is everywhere in our virtual lives. It's in our search results and our phones. But what happens when AI moves out of the chat and into the real world? NPR science editor and correspondent Geoff Brumfiel took a trip to the Intelligence through Robotic Interaction at Scale Lab at Stanford University to see how scientists are using AI to power robots and the large hurdles that exist for them to perform even simple tasks.Read Geoff's full story. Interested in more AI stories? Email us your ideas at [email protected] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What is the podcast 'Is AI Ready For Robots?' about?
Hey, short wavers. Regina Barber here. It seems like artificial intelligence is everywhere in our virtual lives. It's in our search results, our phones. It's trying to read my emails. But NPR science correspondent Jeff Brunfield has noticed that AI isn't just showing up online anymore. It's starting to creep into reality.
Yep. I don't know if you tuned in for Tesla's big marketing event last year, Regina. No. But AI was there.
Chapter 2: How is AI being integrated into humanoid robots like Tesla's Optimus?
Speaking of robots...
Tesla is obviously a car company, but Elon Musk, Tesla's CEO, made a big part of the event about a humanoid robot powered by AI and called Optimus.
The software, the AI inference computer, it all actually applies to a humanoid robot.
And Google just unveiled another humanoid robot that operates using AI.
We're bringing Gemini 2.0's intelligence to general-purpose robotic agents in the physical world.
OK, Jeff, but even before AI came along, people and companies have been making like big claims about robots.
They have. They have. And the robots, as I'm sure you know, Gina, have always disappointed compared to the vision.
Yeah, that's true.
And that's why I set out to understand the truth about AI and robotics. The truth. And I think I kind of found it in Ebola trail mix.
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Chapter 3: Where did Geoff Brumfiel start his investigation on AI-powered robots?
Okay.
And specifically the IRIS laboratory, which stands for Intelligence Through Robotic Interaction at Scale. I got a tour from a graduate student named Moojin Kim. Moojin works on a new kind of robot powered by AI similar to the AI used in chatbots.
It's one step in the direction of like ChatGPT for robotics, but still a lot of work to do.
All right.
Well, you want to show me what I can do? Yeah, for sure.
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Chapter 4: How does the AI model OpenVLA enable robots to learn tasks?
So, Jeff, what did the robot look like?
Well, this wasn't some humanoid robot that the big tech companies are rolling out. It's just a pair of mechanical arms with pinchers.
Okay.
But what made it interesting was that it's powered by an AI model called OpenVLA. So first, we should probably just say quickly, you know, a regular robot must be very, very carefully programmed. An engineer has to write it detailed instructions for every task you want it to perform.
Yeah, and AI is supposed to change that.
Exactly. And that's what's going on here. This robot is powered by a teachable AI neural network. The neural network operates kind of how scientists think the human brain might work. Basically, there are these mathematical nodes in the network that have billions of connections to each other in a way similar to how neurons in the brain are connected together.
And so when you go to program this sort of thing, it's simply about reinforcing the connections that matter between the nodes and weakening the other ones that don't. So in practice, this means Moojin can just teach OpenVLA a task by showing it.
So basically, whatever task you want to do, you just keep doing it over and over, maybe like 50 times or 100 times.
The robot's AI neural network becomes tuned to that task and then it can do it by itself.
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Chapter 5: What are examples of simple tasks AI robots can perform today?
Yeah, it makes me think of this like smiling robot story we did and that robot just watched like a lot of videos of people smiling. Then it learned how to do it.
Yeah, it's exactly the same thing, except instead of just smiling, this robot's actually doing stuff. So to show me, Moojin brought out a tray of different kinds of trail mix, and I typed in what I wanted it to do. Okay, so scoop some green ones with the nuts into the bowl. See what happens.
Okay, so Jeff, personally, I've been waiting for something like AI in robotics because you can teach it to do something, you can ask it to do something to make me an ice cream sundae or something without any fancy programming or special knowledge.
Chapter 6: What challenges exist for robots performing household tasks like folding laundry?
Chapter 7: What is the future vision for AI in robotics according to Chelsea Finn?
So basically, whatever task you want to do, you just keep doing it over and over, maybe like 50 times or 100 times.
The robot's AI neural network becomes tuned to that task and then it can do it by itself.
Yeah, it makes me think of this like smiling robot story we did and that robot just watched like a lot of videos of people smiling. Then it learned how to do it.
Yeah, it's exactly the same thing, except instead of just smiling, this robot's actually doing stuff. So to show me, Moojin brought out a tray of different kinds of trail mix, and I typed in what I wanted it to do. Okay, so scoop some green ones with the nuts into the bowl. See what happens.
Okay, so Jeff, personally, I've been waiting for something like AI in robotics because you can teach it to do something, you can ask it to do something to make me an ice cream sundae or something without any fancy programming or special knowledge.
That's exactly it, you know. And this really is the dream of the researcher who runs this laboratory. Her name is Chelsea Finn.
So in the long term, we want to develop software that would allow the robots to operate intelligently in any situation.
And by intelligently, she means the robot could understand a simple command like scoop some green ones into a bowl or make me a sundae and then execute in the real world.
even just to do very basic things like being able to make a sandwich or being able to clean a kitchen or being able to restock grocery store shelves.
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