Pieter Abbeel had the privilege of delivering a speech at the University of California, Berkeley last month. During the speech, Pieter decided to play a video clip that showed a robot engaging in housework. However, as he explained to his audience later, the video had been recorded in the year 2008. Some of the tasks that were performed by the robot included uploading the dishwasher, dusting the cabinets and even sweeping the floor. Towards the end of the video, the robot managed to open a can of beer for the person who had been seating on the couch. However, he later explained that the robot was being controlled by an engineer who was seated somewhere else. The purpose of the video was to prove that there was hardware that could do the tasks of a human. He further said that the missing ingredient is software that will show the hardware how to function. Mr. Abbeel said that the fact that such software does not exist is a shortcoming of computer science and artificial intelligence. Mr. Abbeel says that he is from Belgium and has been intrigued by artificial intelligence since he was a child. He was worked on the subject for the last few years. First, he managed the feat as a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He later moved to a lab known as OpenAI.
OpenAI is an artificial intelligence lab founded by Elon Musk, the current chief executive officer of Tesla. However, Mr. Abbeel says that he has founded a new company with the assistance of other researchers from OpenAI and Berkeley and they are focusing on robotic automation. The startup is known as Embodied Intelligence and has already received funding worth over $7 million. Most of the funding has come from a Silicon Valley firm known as Amplify Partners. According to the four founders of this company, they have announced that they will be specializing in complex algorithms with the aim of making machines perform their own tasks. Some of the successful complex tasks that they have accomplished so far include sorting a bucket that has random gifts and installing car parts. The efforts by these four gentlemen are geared towards ensuring that there is a new artificial intelligence that can offer an environment where robots can learn. This research has been tried in other places such as Prowler.Io, Micropsia, Carnegie Mellon as well as Brown University and Google.
