25 ms·

Physical Intelligence is building a brain for robots

55 points by Osiris30 3y ago

Jensson 3y ago
Why is OpenAI investing in startups? They invest 100 million in another as well. I thought OpenAI was building their own things as a non profit, why are they investing? Is it normal for non profits to invest like this? Do they lack confidence in their own stuff, do OpenAI have too much money they don't know what to do with? "Norwegian humanoid robot startup 1X Technologies recently raised $100 million with backing from OpenAI" https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/29/robot-startup-figure-valued-at-2point6-billion-by-bezos-amazon-nvidia.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/29/robot-startup-figure-valued-...
- notRobot 3y ago
  OpenAI no longer operates as a non-profit. The "OpenAI" name has been a joke for years in tech circles for this reason.
  - hn_acker 3y ago
    I thought the joke was that OpenAI doesn't grant anything even resembling an "open" license (whether free as in freedom according to the FSF, open as in open source according to the OSI, or open as in Open Knowledge's definition [1]) to use OpenAI's models. (Tangential reminder: open is not merely access to the code and data but also the legal freedom to use and modify it for any purpose.) [1] https://opendefinition.org/od/2.1/en/ https://opendefinition.org/od/2.1/en/
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Palmik 3y ago
  Yes, it's quite common, see for example: https://mozilla.vc/ https://mozilla.vc/ https://www.cff.org/about-us/our-venture-philanthropy-model https://www.cff.org/about-us/our-venture-philanthropy-model
  - hamoodhabibi 3y ago
    this is not even a fair comparison. mozilla isn't using all of our data to build a product that will be metered
- Jensson 3y ago
  Apparently it is a separate entity and fund, they don't invest money from OpenAI but money raised specifically for investing. So this doesn't say much about OpenAI, they aren't investing money they could use themselves. https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-vc-fund-raised-10-million-spv-from-2-investors-2024-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-vc-fund-raised-10-mil...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- leesec 3y ago
  1. They're not a nonprofit 2. They had shut down their robotics wing so now their using investment to get back into the game. 3. What's with this negative tone?
- hamoodhabibi 3y ago
  Asking this question on a platform pretty much aligned with Sam Altman and expecting real nuanced answer is unrealistic. Remember they shut down the thread regarding Sam Altman's sister alleging she was molested by him. Its just incredibly sad to see how society is quick to overlook one's transgressions if it stands to benefit from that individual. Artists, CEOs, politicians, celebrities. Just one sick world and this blatant disregard for "non-profit" because bunch of men feel they were chosen.
kandu 3y ago
Non-paywalled version: https://archive.is/ZtfNh https://archive.is/ZtfNh
apienx 3y ago
A 4 year old child has 16k wake hours x 3600 s/hour x 1^6 optical nerve fibers x 2 eyes x 10 bytes/s = 1^15 bytes (approximation by Yann LeCun). Processing visual input is the current bottleneck for robots that want to make sense of the physical world. Glad somebody's looking into it (no pun intended). I just hope their plan is more sophisticated than throwing more computational power at the problem.
- gibsonf1 3y ago
  I would say conceptual awareness is a far bigger bottleneck than visual perception data.
  - smokel 3y ago
    There are only a few thousand concepts worthy of thought, but there are way more potential pixels even in the current room that I am in.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    I think the state of the art is still bottlenecked on visual perception performance, even if there is sufficient data, and irregardless of any further questions about conceptual awareness. If we could model visual streams accurately, fast, and at low compute cost, I think self-driving cars and autonomous mobile robots would be much more widely available.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    LLMs arguably cracked conceptual awareness already, not to mention demonstrated that you can bootstrap it unsupervised by throwing enough data at it.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
  Is it? What if that 4-year-old child were blind? Obviously their concept of the physical world would be different, but is it any less accurate? If we remove the need for visual perception, thereby removing that bottleneck, how much faster would we be able to make progress?

55 points by Osiris30 3y ago

Why is OpenAI investing in startups? They invest 100 million in another as well. I thought OpenAI was building their own things as a non profit, why are they investing? Is it normal for non profits to invest like this? Do they lack confidence in their own stuff, do OpenAI have too much money they don't know what to do with? "Norwegian humanoid robot startup 1X Technologies recently raised $100 million with backing from OpenAI" https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/29/robot-startup-figure-valued-at-2point6-billion-by-bezos-amazon-nvidia.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/29/robot-startup-figure-valued-...

notRobot 3y ago
OpenAI no longer operates as a non-profit. The "OpenAI" name has been a joke for years in tech circles for this reason.
- hn_acker 3y ago
  I thought the joke was that OpenAI doesn't grant anything even resembling an "open" license (whether free as in freedom according to the FSF, open as in open source according to the OSI, or open as in Open Knowledge's definition [1]) to use OpenAI's models. (Tangential reminder: open is not merely access to the code and data but also the legal freedom to use and modify it for any purpose.) [1] https://opendefinition.org/od/2.1/en/ https://opendefinition.org/od/2.1/en/
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Palmik 3y ago
Yes, it's quite common, see for example: https://mozilla.vc/ https://mozilla.vc/ https://www.cff.org/about-us/our-venture-philanthropy-model https://www.cff.org/about-us/our-venture-philanthropy-model
- hamoodhabibi 3y ago
  this is not even a fair comparison. mozilla isn't using all of our data to build a product that will be metered
Jensson 3y ago
Apparently it is a separate entity and fund, they don't invest money from OpenAI but money raised specifically for investing. So this doesn't say much about OpenAI, they aren't investing money they could use themselves. https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-vc-fund-raised-10-million-spv-from-2-investors-2024-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-vc-fund-raised-10-mil...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
leesec 3y ago
1. They're not a nonprofit 2. They had shut down their robotics wing so now their using investment to get back into the game. 3. What's with this negative tone?
hamoodhabibi 3y ago
Asking this question on a platform pretty much aligned with Sam Altman and expecting real nuanced answer is unrealistic. Remember they shut down the thread regarding Sam Altman's sister alleging she was molested by him. Its just incredibly sad to see how society is quick to overlook one's transgressions if it stands to benefit from that individual. Artists, CEOs, politicians, celebrities. Just one sick world and this blatant disregard for "non-profit" because bunch of men feel they were chosen.

kandu 3y ago

Non-paywalled version: https://archive.is/ZtfNh https://archive.is/ZtfNh

apienx 3y ago

A 4 year old child has 16k wake hours x 3600 s/hour x 1^6 optical nerve fibers x 2 eyes x 10 bytes/s = 1^15 bytes (approximation by Yann LeCun). Processing visual input is the current bottleneck for robots that want to make sense of the physical world. Glad somebody's looking into it (no pun intended). I just hope their plan is more sophisticated than throwing more computational power at the problem.

gibsonf1 3y ago
I would say conceptual awareness is a far bigger bottleneck than visual perception data.
- smokel 3y ago
  There are only a few thousand concepts worthy of thought, but there are way more potential pixels even in the current room that I am in.
- ben_w 3y ago
  I think the state of the art is still bottlenecked on visual perception performance, even if there is sufficient data, and irregardless of any further questions about conceptual awareness. If we could model visual streams accurately, fast, and at low compute cost, I think self-driving cars and autonomous mobile robots would be much more widely available.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  LLMs arguably cracked conceptual awareness already, not to mention demonstrated that you can bootstrap it unsupervised by throwing enough data at it.
HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
Is it? What if that 4-year-old child were blind? Obviously their concept of the physical world would be different, but is it any less accurate? If we remove the need for visual perception, thereby removing that bottleneck, how much faster would we be able to make progress?