Kind: captions
Language: en
I think that animals are a really great
thought experiment when we're thinking
about Ai and Robotics because again this
comparing them to humans that leads us
down the wrong path both because it's
not accurate but also I think for the
future we don't want that
we want something that's a supplement
but I think animals because we've used
them throughout history for so many
different things we we domesticated them
not because they do what we do but
because what they do is different and
that's useful and I it's just like
whether we're talking about
companionship whether we're talking
about work integration whether we're
talking about responsibility for harm
there's just so many things we can draw
on in that history from these entities
that can sense think make autonomous
decisions and learn that are applicable
to how we should be thinking about
robots and AI
the following is a conversation with
Kate darling her second time on the
podcast she's a research scientist at
MIT media lab interested in human robot
interaction and robot ethics which she
writes about in her recent book called
The New Breed what our history with
animals reveals about our future with
robots Kate is one of my favorite people
at MIT she was a courageous voice of
reason and compassion through the time
of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal at MIT
three years ago we reflect on this time
in this very conversation including the
lessons that revealed about human nature
and our optimistic vision for the future
of MIT a university we both love and
believe in
this is the Lux freedom of podcast to
support it please check out our sponsors
in the description and now dear friends
here's Kate darling
last time we talked a few years back you
wore Justin Bieber shirt for the podcast
so now looking back you're respected
um researcher all the amazing
accomplishments in robotics uh you're an
author was this one of the proudest
moments of your life uh proudest
decisions you've ever made definitely
you handled it really well though it was
cool because I walked in I didn't know
you were going to be filming I walked in
and you're in a fucking suit yeah and
I'm like why are you all dressed up yeah
and then you were so nice about it you
like made some excuse you're like oh
well I'm interviewing some art didn't
you say you were interviewing some
military General afterwards to like oh
yeah those makes me feel better CTO of
Lockheed Martin I think
yeah you didn't tell me oh I was dressed
like this are you an actual Bieber fan
or was that like one of those t-shirts
that's in the back of the closet that
you use for painting I think I bought it
for my husband as a joke and yeah I was
we were gut renovating a house at the
time and I had worn it to the site
I got his joke and now you wear it okay
have you worn it since
one time
no like how could I touch it again it
was on your podcast that's frames it's
like a wedding dress or something like
that you don't you only wear it once you
are the author of The New Breed what our
history with animals reveals about our
future with robots
you open the book with the surprisingly
tricky question what is a robot so let
me ask you let's try to sneak up to this
question what's a robot that's not
really sneaking up
it's just asking it yeah all right well
what do you think a robot is what I
think a robot is is something that has
some level of intelligence
and some level of magic
that little shine in the eye you know
that allows you to navigate the
uncertainty of uh of life so that means
like autonomous vehicles to me in that
sense uh are robots because they
navigate
uh the uncertainty the complexity of
life
obviously social robots are that I love
that
I like that you mentioned magic because
that also
well so first of all I don't Define
robot definitively in the book because
there is no definitely that everyone
agrees on and if you look back through
time
people have called things robots until
they lose the magic because they're more
ubiquitous like a vending machine used
to be called a robot and now it's not
right so I do agree with you that
there's this magic aspect that
that which is how people understand
robots
if you ask a roboticist they have the
definition of something that is well it
has to be physical usually it's not an
AI agent it has to be embodied
um they'll say it has to be able to
sense this environment in some way it
has to be able to make a decision
autonomously and then act on its
environment again
I think that's a pretty good technical
definition even though it really breaks
down when you come to things like the
smartphone because the smartphone can do
all of those things and most robotics
would not call it a robot so there's
really no no one good definition but
part of why I wrote the book is because
people have a definition of robot in
their minds that is
usually very focused on a comparison of
robots to humans so if you Google image
search robot you get a bunch of humanoid
robots robots with that torso and head
and two arms and two legs
and that's
the definition of robot that I'm trying
to get us away from because I think that
it trips us up a lot why does the
humanoid form trip us up a lot well
because this constant comparison of
robots to people artificial intelligence
to human intelligence
first of all it doesn't make sense from
a technical perspective because
you know the early AI researchers some
of them were trying to recreate human
intelligence some people still are and
there's a lot to be learned from that
academically Etc but
um that's not where We've Ended up AI
doesn't think like people we wind up in
this fallacy where we're where we're
comparing these two
um and we're when we talk about what
intelligence even is we're often
comparing to our own intelligence and
then
the second reason this bothers me is
because it doesn't make sense
I I just think it's boring to recreate
intelligence that we already have I see
the scientific value of understanding
our own intelligence but from a like
practical what can we use these
Technologies for perspective it's much
more interesting to create something new
to create a skill set that we don't have
that we can partner with and what we're
trying to achieve
and it should be in some deep way
similar to us but in most ways different
because you still want to have a
connection which is why the similarity
might be necessary that's what people
argue yes and I think that's true so the
two arguments for humanoid robots are
people need to be able to communicate
and relate to robots and we relate most
to things that are like ourselves
and we have a world that's built for
humans so we have stairs and narrow
passageways and door handles and so we
need humanoid robots to be able to
navigate that and so you're speaking to
the first one which is absolutely true
but what we know from social Robotics
and a lot of human robot interaction
research is that you all you need is
something that's enough like
a person to for it to give off cues that
someone relates to and that but that
doesn't have to look human or even act
human you can take a robot like R2D2 and
it just like beeps and boops and people
love R2D2 right even though it's just
like a trash can on Wheels and they like
r2dging more than C-3PO who's a humanoid
so there's lots of there's lots of ways
to make robots even better than humans
in some ways and make us relate more to
them
yeah it's kind of amazing the variety of
cues that can be used to
anthropomorphize the thing like a
glowing orb or something like that yeah
just just a voice
just uh just subtle basic interaction I
think people sometimes over engineer
these things
like Simplicity can go a really long way
totally I mean ask any animator and
they'll know that yeah yeah those are
actually so the people behind Cosmo the
um
the the robot
the right people to design those as
animators like Disney type of people
yeah versus like roboticists robotics is
quote unquote are mostly Clueless
they just have their own discipline that
they're very good at and they didn't
don't have yeah but that that don't
don't you know I feel like robotics
of the early 21st century
is not going to be the robotics of the
later 21st century I don't know like if
you call yourself a roboticist it'll be
something very different because I I
think more and more you'd be like a
maybe like a control engineer or
something controls engineer like uh you
separate because ultimately all the
unsolved all the big problems of
Robotics will be in the social aspect in
the interacting with humans aspect in
the
uh perception interpreting the world
aspect in the brain part not the not the
not the basic control level part
you call it basic it's actually
right like it's very very complicated
and that's why but like I think you're
so right and and and what a time to be
alive because
for me I just
we've had robots for so long and they've
just been behind the scenes
and now finally robots are getting
deployed into the world they're coming
out of the closet yeah and and we're
seeing all these mistakes that companies
are making because they focus so much on
the engineering and getting that right
and getting the robot to be even be able
to function in a space that it shares
with a human see what I feel like people
don't understand
is to solve the perception and the
control problem
you shouldn't try to just solve the
perception control problem you should
teach the robot how to say oh shit I'm
sorry I fucked up yeah or ask for help
oh for ask for help or be able to
communicate the uncertainty yeah exactly
all of those things because you can't
solve the perception control we humans
haven't solved it we were really damn
good at it
uh but the the magic is in the the
self-deprecating humor and the
self-awareness about where our flaws are
all that kind of stuff
yeah and there's a whole body of
research in human robot interaction
showing like ways to do this but a lot
of these companies haven't they don't do
HRI they like the have you seen the
grocery store robot in the Stop and Shop
yes yeah the Marty it looks like a giant
penis it's like six feet tall it roams
the aisles I will never see marketing
the same way again thank you you're
welcome
but like
they they these poor people were so hard
on getting a functional robot together
and then people hate Marty because they
didn't
at all consider how people would react
to Marty in their space does everybody I
mean you talk about this do do people
mostly hate Marty because I I like I
like Mario
yeah and actually like there's a there's
a parallel between the two I believe
there is so we were actually going to do
a study on this right before the
pandemic hit and then we canceled it
because we didn't want to go to the
grocery store and neither did anyone
else
um but our Theory so this was with a
student at MIT Daniella de Paola she
noticed that everyone on Facebook in her
circles was complaining about Marty
they're like what is this creepy robot
is watching me it's always in the way
and she did this like quick and dirty
sentiment analysis on Twitter where she
was looking at positive and negative
mentions of the robot and she found that
the biggest Spike of negative mentions
happened
um when Stop and Shop threw a birthday
party for the Marty robots like with
free cake and balloons like who
complains about free cake well people
who hate Marty apparently so
and so we were like that's interesting
and then we did this like online poll we
used Mechanical Turk and we tried to
get at what people don't like about
Marty and a lot of it wasn't oh Marty's
taking jobs it was Marty is the
surveillance robot which is not it looks
for spills on the floor it doesn't
actually like look at any people
um it's it's watching as creepy as
getting in the way those are the things
that people complained about and so our
hypothesis became
is Marty a real life clippy because I
know Lex you love clippy but many people
hated clippy well there's a complex
thing there it could be like marriage a
lot of people seem to like to complain
about marriage but they secretly love it
so it could be the relationship you
might have with uh with Marty is like
oh there he goes again doing his stupid
surveillance thing but you can grow to
love the um
I mean bitching about the thing that
kind of releases a kind of tension and
there's I mean some people a lot of
people show Love by sort of uh
busting each other's jobs you know like
making fun of each other and then if I
think I think people would really love
it if Marty talked back
and and like well these are so many
possible options for humor there one you
can lean in you can be like yes I'm an
agent of the CIA monitoring your every
move like mocking people that are
concerned you know saying like yes I I'm
watching you because you're so important
with your shopping patterns I'm
collecting all this data
um or or just you know any kind of
making fun of people I don't know but I
think you hit on what exactly it is
because when it comes to robots or
artificial agents
I think people hate them more than they
would some other machine or device or
object
and it might and it might be that thing
it might be combined with love or like
whatever it is it's a more extreme
response because they view these things
as social Asians and not objects and
that was
um so Clifford nass was a big human
computer interaction person and he his
theory about Clippy was that because
people viewed clippy as a social agent
when clippy was annoying and would like
bother them and interrupt them and like
not remember what they told him that's
when people got upset because it wasn't
fulfilling their social expectations and
so they complained about Clippy more
than they would have if it had been a
diff like not an not a you know virtual
character so is complaining to you a
sign that we're on the wrong path with a
particular robot or is it possible like
again like marriage like
family that there still is a path
towards that direction where we can find
deep meaningful relationship
I think we absolutely can
meaningful relationships with more
robots and well maybe with Marty I mean
I just would I would have designed Marty
a little differently but oh isn't there
a charm to the clumsiness the slowness
there is if you're not trying to get
through the shopping cart and screaming
child you know there's I think
I think you could make it Charming I
think there are lots of design tricks
that they could have used and one of the
things they did I think without thinking
about it at all is they slapped too big
googly eyes on Marty oh yeah and I I
wonder if that contributed maybe to
people feeling watched
um
because because it's looking at them
and
so like is there a way to design the
robot to do the function that it's doing
in a way that does that people are
actually attracted to rather than
annoyed by and there are many ways to do
that but companies aren't thinking about
it now they're realizing that they
should have thought about it yeah I
wonder if there's a way to
if it would help to make Marty seem like
an entity of its own versus uh
the arm of a large corporation
so there's some sense where
this is just the camera that's
monitoring people versus this is an
entity that's a standalone entity it has
its own task
and it has its own personality the more
personality you give it the more it
feels like
it's not sharing data with anybody else
like
when we see other human beings our basic
assumption is whatever I say to this
human being it's not like being
immediately sent to the CIA yeah what I
say to you no one's gonna hear that
right yeah that's true that's true well
you forget it I mean you do forget it I
mean I don't know if that even with
microphones here you forget that that's
happening but there for some reason I
think probably with Marty
um I think when it's done really crudely
and crappily you start to realize oh
this is like PR people trying to make a
friendly version of a surveillance
machine but
um I mean that reminds me of the slight
clumsiness or significant clumsiness on
the initial releases of the avatars for
the metaverse I don't know what what do
you what are your actually thoughts
about that the the
way
uh the avatars the way like Mark
Zuckerberg looks in that world you know
the the the the meta verse the virtual
reality world where you can have like
virtual meetings and stuff like that
like how do we get that right do you
have thoughts about that because that's
the kind of uh
it's a
is it feels like a similar problem to
social robotics which is how you design
a digital virtual world that is
compelling
when you connect others there in the
same way that physical
connection is right I haven't looked
into I mean I've seen people joking
about it on Twitter and like posting
like that whatever yeah but I mean have
you seen it because it there's something
you can't quite put into words uh that
um
doesn't feel genuine yeah about the way
it looks and so the question is if you
and I were to meet virtually
what should the avatars look like
for us to have a similar kind of
connection should it be a really
simplified should it be a little bit
more realistic should it be cartoonish
should it be more
um
better capturing of Expressions uh in
interesting complex ways versus like
cartoonish oversimplified ways but
haven't video games figured this out I'm
not a gamer so I don't have any examples
but I feel like there's this whole world
in video games where they've thought
about all of this and depending on the
game they have different like avatars
and a lot of the games are about
connecting with others I just the thing
that I don't know is and again I haven't
looked into this at all
um I've been like shockingly not very
interested in the metaverse but
they must have poured so much investment
into this
um meta and
like why why is it so why are people why
is it so bad like well there's gonna be
a reason there's got to be some thinking
behind it right
well I talked to Carmack about this uh
John Carmack who's a part-time
um Oculus
CTO
I think uh there's several things to say
one is as you probably know that I mean
there's bureaucracy there's large
corporations and they often large
corporations have a way of
killing the ND kind of artistic
flame that's required to create
something really compelling somehow they
make everything boring because they they
run through this whole process through
the PR department through all that kind
of stuff and it somehow becomes generic
to that process because you strip out
anything interesting because it could be
controversial is that or yeah right
exactly like um
like what I mean we're living through
this now like with the
with a lot of people with cancellations
all those kinds of stuff people are
nervous and nervousness results in like
the like usual the assholes are ruining
everything but you know the magic of
human connection is taking risks of
making a risky joke of of of like with
people you like who are not assholes
good people like some of the fun some of
the fun in the metaverse OR in video
games is you know being edgier being
interesting revealing your personality
in interesting ways
um in the sexual tension or in uh
they're definitely paranoid about that
oh yeah like in metaverse the
possibility of sexual assault and sexual
harassment and all that kind of stuff
it's it's obviously very high but
they're uh so you should be paranoid to
some degree but not too much because
then you remove completely person the
personality of the whole thing then
everybody's just like a vanilla bot but
uh like you have to have
ability
um to be a little bit political to be a
little bit edgy all that kind of stuff
and large companies tend to suffocate
that so I but in general if you get all
that just the ability to come up
really cool beautiful ideas
if you look at uh I think Grimes tweeted
about this she's very critical about the
metaverse is that
um
you know the uh independent uh game
designers have solved this problem of
how to create something beautiful and
interesting and compelling they they do
a really good job so you have to let
those kinds of Minds the small groups of
people design things and let them run
with it let them run wild and do edgy
stuff yeah but otherwise you because you
get this kind of
you get a clippy type of situation right
which is like a very generic looking
thing
um but even clippy has some like that's
kind of wild that you would take a a
paper clip and put eyes on it and
suddenly people are like oh you're
annoying but you're definitely a social
agent and I just feel like that wouldn't
even that clippy thing wouldn't even
survive Microsoft
or Facebook of today matter of today
because it would be like what there'll
be these meetings about why is it for
people
like why don't we it's not sufficiently
friendly let's make it uh you know and
then all of a sudden the artist that
with whom it originated is killed and
it's all PR marketing people and all
that kind of stuff no they do important
work to some degree but they kill the
creativity I think the killing of the
creativity is in the whole like Okay so
some social robotics is like obviously
if you create agents that okay so take
for an example you'd create a robot that
looks like a humanoid and it's you know
Sophia or whatever now suddenly you do
have all of these issues where
are you reinforcing an unrealistic
Beauty standard are you objectifying
women uh why is the robot white so you
have but the thing is I think that with
creativity
you can find a solution that's even
better where you're not even harming
anyone and you're creating a robot that
looks like not not humanoid but like
something that people relate to even
more and now you don't even have any of
these bias issues that you're creating
and so how do we create that within
companies because I don't think it's
really about
like I because I you know maybe we
disagree on that I don't think that
edginess or humor or interesting things
need to be things that harm or hurt
people or that people are against there
are ways to find things that everyone is
fine with
why aren't we doing that the problem is
there's departments that look for harm
and things yeah and so they will find
harm in things that have no harm okay
that's the big problem because their
whole job is to find harm in things so
what you said is completely correct
which is edginess should not hurt
doesn't necessarily doesn't need to be a
thing that hurts people it obviously
great humor great uh personality doesn't
have to uh like clippy
but yeah I mean it but it's tricky to
get right and I'm not exactly sure I
don't know I don't know why a large
corporation with a lot of funding can't
get this right I do think you're right
that there's a lot of aversion to risk
and so if you get lawyers involved or
people whose job it is like you say to
mitigate risk they're just going to say
no to most things that could even be in
some way yeah
yeah you get the problem in all
organizations so I think that you're
right that that is a problem I think
what's the way to solve that in large
organizations is to have Steve Jobs
types of characters unfortunately you do
need to have I think
um from a designer or maybe like a
Johnny Ive
that is almost like a dictator yeah you
want a benevolent dictator yeah who
rolls in and says like the cuts through
the lawyers the PR but has a benevolent
aspect like yeah this is a good heart
and make sure like I think all great
artists and designers create stuff that
doesn't hurt people like if you have a
good heart you're going to create
something that's going to actually
um make a lot of people feel good that's
what like people like Johnny Ive what
they love doing is creating a thing that
brings a lot of love to the world they
imagine like millions of people using
the thing and it instills them with with
joy that's that you could say that by
social robotics you could say that about
the metaverse it shouldn't be done by
the pr people should be done by this
time I agree PR people ruin everything
yeah all the fun uh in the uh in the
book you have a picture this I just have
a lot of ridiculous questions you have a
picture of two Hospital delivery robots
with a caption that reads by the way see
your book I appreciate that it keeps the
humor in you didn't run it by the PR
department no no one edited the book got
rushed through
uh the thing the caption reads two
hospitals delivery robots whose sexy
nurse names Roxy and Lola made me roll
my eyes so hard they almost fell out
um what aspect of it made you roll your
eyes is it the naming it was the naming
the form factor is fine it's like a
little box on Wheels the fact that they
named them also great that'll let people
enjoy interacting with them we know that
even just giving a robot a name people
will uh it facilitates technology
adoption people will be like oh you know
Betsy made a mistake let's help her out
instead of this stupid robot doesn't
work but why lowly and Lola and Roxy
like those are too too sexy I mean
there's research showing that
a lot of robots are named according to
gender biases about the function that
they're fulfilling so
you know robots that are helpful in
assistance and are like nurses are
usually female gendered robots that are
you know powerful all wise computers
like Watson usually have like a booming
male uh coded voice and name so
like why like that's one of those things
right you're opening a can of worms for
no reason for no reason you can avoid
this whole camera yeah just give it a
different name like why Roxy
it's because people aren't even thinking
so to some extent I don't I don't like
PR departments but getting some feedback
on your work from a diverse set of
participants listening and taking in
things that help you identify your own
blind spots and then you can always make
your good leadership choices and good
like you can still ignore things that
you don't believe are an issue but
having the openness to take in feedback
and making sure that you're getting the
right feedback from the right people I
think that's really important so don't
unnecessarily propagate the biases of
society yeah why in the design
but uh if you're not careful though when
you when you do the research of
like
you might if you ran a poll with a lot
of people of all the possible names
these robots have they might come up
with Roxy and Lola as as as names they
um it would enjoy most like that could
come up as uh as the highest as in you
do marketing research and then
well that's what they did with Alexa
they did marketing research and nobody
wanted the male voice everyone wanted it
to be female what do you what do you
think about that like what
I mean if I if I were to say
I think the role of a great designer
again to go back to Johnny Ive is to
throw out the marketing research
like take it in do it learn from it but
like
if everyone wants Alexa to be a female
voice
the role of the designers to think
deeply about the future
of social agents in the home and think
like what does that future look like and
try to reverse engineer that future so
like in some sense there's this weird
tension like you want to listen to a lot
of people
but at the same time you want to you're
creating a thing that defines the future
of the world
and the people that you're listening to
are part of the past
so like that weird tension yeah I think
that's true and I think some companies
like apple have historically done very
well at understanding a market and
saying you know what our role is it's
not to listen to what the current market
says it's to actually shape the market
and shape consumer preferences and
companies companies have the power to do
that they can before we're thinking and
they can actually shift what the future
of technology looks like
and I agree with you that I would like
to see more of that especially when it
comes to
existing biases that we know
or or you know that that I think there's
the low-hanging fruit of companies that
don't even think about it at all and
aren't talking to the right people and
aren't getting the full information and
then there's companies that are just
like doing the safe thing and and giving
consumers what they want now but to be
really forward looking and be really
successful I think you have to make some
judgment calls about what the future is
going to be but do you think it's still
useful to gender and to name the robots
yes I mean
gender is the minefields but people I
it's really hard to get people to not
gender a robot in some way
so if you don't give it a name or you
give it a like ambiguous voice people
will just choose something and maybe
that's better than just like
uh you know entrenching something that
you've decided is best
but I do think it can be helpful on the
like anthropomorphism engagement level
to give it attributes that people
identify with yeah I think uh a lot of
roboticists I know they they don't
gender the robot they don't they even
try to avoid naming the robot or naming
it ain't something that is uh can be
used as a name in conversation kind of
thing
and I think that actually
that's uh
irresponsible because
people are going to anthropomorphize the
thing anyway
so you're just uh removing from yourself
the responsibility of how they're
they're going to anthropomorphize it
that's a good point and so like you want
to be able to like they're going to do
it you have to start to think about how
they're going to do it even if the robot
is like a Boston Dynamics robot that's
not supposed to have any kind of social
component
they're obviously going to project a
social component to it yeah like that
arm
I worked a lot a lot with quadruped now
with with the robot dogs you know that
arm people think is the head immediately
yeah it's supposed to be an arm but they
start to think it's a head and you have
to like acknowledge that you can't I
mean uh they do now they do now well
they've deployed the robots and people
are like oh my God the cops are using a
robot dog and so they have this PR
Nightmare and so they're like oh
yeah okay maybe we should hire some HRI
people
well Boston Dynamics is an interesting
company or any of the others that are
doing similar thing because
their their main source of money
is um in the industrial application so
like surveillance to factories and uh
doing dangerous jobs so to them it's
almost good PR
for people to be scared of these things
because it's it's for some reason as you
talk about people are naturally for some
reason scared we could talk about that
of robots and so it becomes more viral
like uh playing with that little fear
and so it's almost like a good PR
because ultimately they're not trying to
put them in the home and have a good
social connection they're trying to put
them in factories and so they they have
fun with it if you watch Boston Dynamics
videos yeah they're aware of it oh yeah
they're I mean the videos for sure that
they put out it's almost like an
unspoken
tongue-in-cheek thing they they're aware
of how people are going to feel when you
have a robot that does like a flip now
most of the people are uh just like
excited about the control problem of it
like how to how to make the whole thing
happen but they're aware when people see
well I think they became aware I think
that in the beginning they were really
really focused on just the engineering I
mean they're at the Forefront of
Robotics like Locomotion and stuff
um
and then when they started doing the
videos I think that was kind of a labor
of love
I know that the former CEO Mark like he
oversaw a lot of the videos and made a
lot of them himself and like he's even
really really detail-oriented like there
can't be like some sort of incline that
would give the robot an advantage
they're very like he he was very um hell
of Integrity about the authenticity of
them uh and but then when they started
to go viral I think that's when they
started to realize oh there's something
interesting here that
you know I don't I don't know how much
they took it seriously in the beginning
other than realizing that they could
play Within the videos yeah I know that
they take it very seriously now what I
like about Boston Dynamics
and similar companies it's still mostly
run by engineers
but you know
I've had my criticisms there's a bit
more PR leaking in but those videos are
made by Engineers because that's what
they find fun mm-hmm it's like testing
the robustness of the system
I mean they uh
they're having a lot of fun there with
the robots totally
have you been have you been to visit
yeah yeah yeah yeah it's cool it's one
of the most important like I I uh
I mean because I I have
um eight uh robot dogs now uh wait you
have eight robot dogs what are they just
walking around your place like yeah I'm
working on them uh that's actually one
of my goals is
to have at any one time always a robot
moving oh I'm far away that's an
ambitious goal
well I have like more roombas I know
what to do with the room their program
so the the programmable roombas nice and
um I have a bunch of little like I built
the well I'm not finished with the
butter robot from Rick and Morty I saw a
bunch of robots everywhere but the thing
is what happens is you're working on one
robot at a time
and uh that becomes like a little
project
it's actually very difficult to have
just a passively
functioning robot always moving yeah and
that's a that's a that's a dream for me
because I'd love to create that kind of
a little world so uh the the impressive
thing about Boston Dynamics to me was to
see like hundreds of spots
and like there's a the most impressive
thing that still sticks with me is um
there was a a spot robot
walking down the hall seemingly with no
supervision whatsoever and he was
wearing he or she I don't know was
wearing a cowboy hat
it just it was just walking down the
hall and nobody paying attention and
it's just like walking down this long
Hall and I'm like looking around this is
anyone like what's happening here so I'm
presumably some kind of automation where
he's doing the map I mean the whole
environment is probably really well
mapped but I it was just
it gave me a picture of a world where a
robot is doing his thing wearing a
cowboy hat just
going down the hall like getting some
coffee or whatever like I don't know
what it's doing what's the mission but
uh I don't know for some reason it
really stuck with me you don't often see
robots that aren't part of a demo or
that aren't uh you know like with a
semi-autonomous autonomous vehicle like
directly doing a task this was just
chilling yeah walking around I don't
know well yeah you know I mean we're at
MIT like when I first got to MIT I was
like okay where's all the where's all
the robots and they were all like broken
or like not demoing so yeah and and and
what really excites me is that we're
about to have that we're about to have
so many moving rope about to well it's
coming it's coming in our lifetime that
we will just have robots moving around
we're already seeing the beginnings of
it there's delivery robots in some
cities on the sidewalks and I just love
seeing like the tick tocks of people
reacting to that because yeah you see a
robot walking on the hall with a cowboy
hat you're like what
the what is this this is awesome and
scary and kind of awesome and people
either love or hate it that's one of the
things that I think companies are
underestimating that people will either
love a robot or hate a robot and nothing
in between so it's just again an
exciting time to be alive yeah I think
kids almost universally at least in my
experience love them
a lot love legged robots if they're not
La my my son hates the room though
because ours is loud
oh that yeah no the legs the legs oh
yeah because your son
um
do they understand Roma to be a robot
oh yeah my kids that's that's the first
words they learned they know how to say
beep boop
think the room as a robot does do they
project intelligence out of the thing
but we don't really use it around them
anymore for the reason that my son is
scared of it
yeah that's right I think they would
like even a Roomba
because it's moving around on its own
I think kids and animals view it as a an
agent
so what do you think if we just look at
the state of the art of Robotics what do
you think robots are actually good at
today
so if we look at today you mean physical
robots yeah physical robots
well like what are you impressed by
so I think a lot of people I mean that's
what your book is about is have maybe a
not a perfectly calibrated understanding
of
where we are in terms of Robotics what's
difficult the robotics what's easy in
robotics yeah we're way behind where
people think we are so
what's impressive to me so uh let's see
oh one one thing that came out recently
was Amazon has this new Warehouse robot
and it's the first autonomous Warehouse
robot that can is safe for people to be
around and so like it's kind of most
people most people I think Envision that
our warehouses are already fully
automated and that they're just like
robots doing things
it's actually still really difficult to
have robots and people in the same space
because it's dangerous for the most part
robots you know because especially
robots that have to be strong enough to
move something heavy for example they
can really hurt somebody and so until
now a lot of the warehouse robots had to
just move along like pre-existing lines
which really restricts what you can do
um and so having I think that that's
that's one of the big challenges and one
of the big like exciting things that's
happening is that we're starting to see
more kobotics in industrial spaces like
that where people and robots can work
side by side and not get harmed yeah
that's what people don't realize sort of
the physical manipulation tasks with
humans
it's not that the robots want to hurt
you
I think that's what people are worried
about like this malevolent robot gets
them out of its own and wants to destroy
all humans now it's you know it's
actually very difficult to know where
the human is yeah and to to respond to
the human and dynamically and
collaborate with them on a task
especially if you're something like an
industrial robotic arm which is
extremely powerful
yeah this some of the some of those arms
are pretty impressive now that
you can just you can you can grab it you
can move it so the the collaboration
between human robot in the factory
setting is really fascinating yeah
um do you think they'll take our jobs
I don't think it's that simple I think
that there's a ton of disruption that's
happening and will continue to happen
um
you know I think speaking specifically
of the Amazon warehouses that might be
an area where it would be good for
robots to take some of the jobs that are
you know where people are put in a
position where it's unsafe and they're
treated horribly and you know probably
it would be better if a robot did that
and Amazon is clearly trying to automate
that job away so uh I think there's
going to be a lot of disruption I do
think that robots and humans have very
different skill sets so while a robot
might take over a task
it's not going to take over most jobs
um
I think just things will change a lot
like I know one of the examples I have
in the book is mining
um so they're you have this job that is
very unsafe and that requires a bunch of
workers and puts them in unsafe
conditions and now you have all these
different robotic machines that can help
make the job safer and as a result now
people can sit in these like
air-conditioned remote control stations
and like control these autonomous mining
trucks and so that's a much better job
but also they're employing less people
now so it's
it's just a lot of
I think from a bird's eye perspective
you're not going to see job loss you're
going to see more jobs created because
that's I I think the future is not
robots just becoming like people and
taking their jobs the future is really a
combination of our skills and then the
supplemental skills that robots have to
increase productivity to help people
have better safer jobs to
give people work that they actually
enjoy doing and are good at
um but it's really easy to say that from
a bird's eye perspective and
um ignore kind of the the rubble on the
ground as we go through these
transitions because of course specific
jobs are going to get lost if you look
at the history of the 20th century it
seems like automation
constantly
increases productivity and improves
the average quality of life so it's it's
been always good so like thinking about
this time being different is that we
would need to go against the lessons of
History it's true
and uh the other thing is I think people
think that the automation of the
physical tasks is easy I was I was just
in Ukraine and the interesting thing is
um
I mean there's a lot of difficult and uh
dark lessons just about a war zone but
one of the things that happens in war is
there's a lot of Mines that are placed
um that's the this one of the big
problems
for years after a war is even over is
the entire landscape is covered in mines
and so there's a demining effort
and you would think robots would be good
at this kind of thing or like your
intuition would be like well say you
have unlimited money and you want to do
a good job of it unlimited money you
would get a lot of really nice robots
but no humans are still far superior or
animals or animals but even right but
humans with animals together yeah you
can't just have that's true dog with a
hat
that's fair
but yes and but figuring out also how to
uh disable the mine
obviously the easy thing the thing a
robot can help with is to find the mine
and blow it up but that's gonna destroy
the landscape that that really does a
lot of damage to the land you want to uh
disable the mine and to do that because
of all the different all the different
edge cases of the problem it requires a
huge amount of human-like experience it
seems like so it's mostly done by humans
they have no use for robots they don't
want robots yeah I think we overestimate
what we can automate
in the especially in the Physical Realm
yeah that's it's weird I mean it's
continues that this this the story of
humans we think were shitty at
everything in the physical world
including driving we think everybody
makes fun of themselves and others for
being shitty drivers but we're actually
kind of incredible no incredible and
that's why like
that's the way Tesla still says that if
you're in the driver's seat like you you
are ultimately responsible because the
ideal for I mean I mean you know more
about this than I do but
he like robot cars are great at
predictable things and can react faster
and more precisely than a person and can
do a lot of the driving and then the
reason that we still don't have
autonomous vehicles on all the roads yet
is because of this long tail of just
unexpected occurrences where a human
immediately understands that's the
sunset and not a traffic light that's a
horse and carriage ahead of me on the
highway but the car has never
encountered that before so like in
theory combining those skill sets is
what's gonna really be powerful
the only problem is figuring off the
figuring out the human robot interaction
and the handoffs so like in cars that's
a huge problem right now figuring out
the handoffs
um but in other areas uh it might be
easier and that's really the future is
human robot interaction
well it's really hard to improve
it's it's it's terrible that people die
in car
accidents but I mean it's like 70 80 100
million miles one death per
uh 80 million miles that's like really
hard to beat for a robot that's that's
like incredible that like think about it
like the how many people the just the
number of people throughout the world
that are driving every single day all
this you know Steve deprived drunk
uh distracted all of that and still very
few die relative to what I would imagine
if I were to guess back in the horse see
when I was like in the in the beginning
of the 20th century riding my horse I
would talk so much shit about these cars
I'd be like this is gonna this is
extremely dangerous these machines
traveling at 30 miles an hour or
whatever the hell they're going at this
is irresponsible it's unnatural and and
it's going to be destructive to all of
human society but then it's extremely
surprising how humans adapt to the thing
and they know how to not kill each other
um I mean that at ability to adapt is
incredible and to mimic that in the
machine is really tricky
now that said what Tesla is doing it I
mean I wouldn't have guessed how far
machine learning can go on Vision alone
it's really really incredible and people
that are
at least from my perspective people that
are kind of um
uh you know critical of Elon and those
efforts
I think don't give enough credit how
much progress we made some how much
incredible progress has been made in
that direction I think most of the
robotics Community wouldn't have guessed
how much you can do on Vision alone it's
kind of incredible
um because we would be I think it's that
approach which is relatively unique
has challenged the other competitors to
step up their game so if you're using
lidar if you're using mapping
um that challenges them to do
better to scale faster and to use
machine learning and computer vision as
well to integrate both lidar and vision
so
um it's kind of incredible and I'm not
I don't know if I even have a good
intuition of how hard driving is anymore
maybe it is possible to solve
so all the stuff you mentioned yeah the
question is one yeah I think it's not
happening as quickly as people thought
it would because it is more complicated
but I wouldn't have
I I agree with you my current intuition
is that we're gonna get there I think
we're gonna get there too but I didn't
before I wasn't sure we're gonna get
there without like with current
technology
so you know I I was kind of this is like
with vision alone I my intuition was
you're gonna have to solve like Common
Sense reasoning
you're gonna have to you're gonna have
to solve some of the big problems in
artificial intelligence not just
uh not just perception
yeah like you have to have a deep
understanding of the world it's always
my sense but now I'm starting to like
well this I mean I'm continuously
surprised how well the thing works yeah
obviously Elon and others others have
stopped but Elon continues you know
saying we're going to solve it in a year
oh yeah that's the thing bold
predictions though yeah well everyone
else used to be doing that but they kind
of like all right yeah or maybe more
maybe let's not promise we're gonna
solve uh level four driving by 2020.
let's uh let's chill on that but people
are still trying silently I mean the UK
just committed 100 million pounds to
research and development to speed up the
process of getting autonomous vehicles
on the road like everyone is everyone
can see that it is solvable and it's
going to happen and it's going to change
everything and they're still investing
in it and uh like waymo Loki has
driverless cars in in Arizona
like you can get you know there's like
robots
it's weird have you ever been to one no
it's so weird it's so awesome because uh
the the most awesome experience is a is
the wheel turning and you're sitting in
the back it's like
I don't know it's uh
it feels like you're a passenger with
that friend who's a little crazy of a
driver it feels like
shit I don't know are you right to drive
bro you know that kind of feeling good
but but then you kind of
that experience that nervousness
um and the excitement of trusting
another being in this case it's a
machine it's really interesting
um just even introspecting your own
feelings about the thing yeah uh they're
not doing
anything in terms of making you feel
better
like at least waymo I think they went
with the approach of like let's not try
to put eyes on the thing
let's it's it's a it's a wheel we know
what that looks like it's just a car
it's a car get in the back let's not
like discuss this at all let's not
discuss the fact that this is a robot
driving you and you're in the back and
if the robot wants to start driving 80
miles an hour and run off of a bridge
you have no recourse let's not discuss
this you're just getting in the back
there's no discussion about like how
shit can go wrong uh there's no eyes
there's nothing there's like a map
showing what the car can see
like you know what happens if it's like
uh a HAL 9000 situation like I'm like
I'm sorry I can't you have a button you
can like call customer service oh God
then you get put on hold for two hours
yeah probably
um but you know currently what they're
doing which I think
is understandable but you know the car
just can pull over and stop and wait for
help to arrive and then a driver will
come and then they'll actually drive the
car for you but that's like you know
what if you're late
for meeting or all that kind of stuff or
like the more dystopian isn't it the
Fifth Element where it's Will Smith in
it who's in that movie no Bruce Willis
Bruce Willis oh yeah and he gets into
like a robotic cab or car or something
and then because he's violated a traffic
rule it locks him in yeah and he has to
wait for the cops to come and he can't
get out so like yeah we're gonna see
stuff like that maybe
what's this
I I believe that the companies that have
robots
the the only ones that will succeed are
the ones that don't do that meaning they
respect
privacy you think so yeah because people
because because they're gonna have to
earn people's trust yeah but like Amazon
works with law enforcement and gives
them the data from The Ring cameras so
why should it yeah
do you have a ring camera
uh no okay no no but you know basically
any security camera right I've uh
Google's whatever they have we have one
that's not
the data at least or the data on a local
server because we don't want it to go to
law enforcement because all the
companies are doing it they're doing I I
bet App