Google research scientist Fei Xia accepts a can from a robot during a demonstration |
Google is combining the eyes and arms of physical robots with the knowledge and conversation skills of virtual chatbots to help its employees fetch soda and chips from breakrooms with ease.
The mechanical waiters, shown in action to reporters last
week, embody an artificial intelligence breakthrough that paves the way for
multipurpose robots as easy to control as ones that perform single, structured
tasks such as vacuuming or standing guard.
The company's robots are not ready for sale. They perform
only a few dozen simple actions, and the company has not yet embedded them with
the "OK, Google" summoning feature familiar to consumers.
While Google says it is pursuing development responsibly,
adoption could ultimately stall over concerns such as robots becoming
surveillance machines, or being equipped with chat technology that can give
offensive responses, as Meta and others have experienced in recent years.
Microsoft and Amazon are pursuing comparable research on
robots.
"It's going to take a while before we can really have a
firm grasp on the direct commercial impact," said Vincent Vanhoucke,
senior director for Google's robotics research.
When asked to help clean a spill, Google's robot recognises
that grabbing a sponge is a doable and more sensible response than apologising
for creating the mess.
The robots interpret naturally spoken commands, weigh
possible actions against their capabilities and plan smaller steps to achieve
the ask.
The chain is made possible by infusing the robots with
language technology that draws understanding of the world from Wikipedia,
social media and other webpages. Similar AI underlies chatbots or virtual
assistants, but has not been applied to robots this expansively before, Google
said.
It unveiled the effort in a research paper in April.
Incorporating more sophisticated language AI since then boosted the robots'
success on commands to 74 percent from 61 percent, according to a company blog
post on Tuesday.
Fellow Alphabet subsidiary Everyday Robots designs the
robots, which for now will stay confined to grabbing snacks for employees. ©
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