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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · 19h

This morning Prez Kornbluth of MIT sent a letter to US Dept of Ed Secretary McMahon. Key sentence replying to the demand for MIT to submit to POTUS whims in exchange for science funds:
Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.

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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · 3d

Promised 5,000 Optimus this year. "Tesla slashed its production goal to 2,000 a few months later ... Then, ... summer, staffers told Musk Tesla could meet the 2,000 target, but the robots wouldn’t be very useful due to issues with their hands." But, dancing!! www.theinformation.com/articles/elo...

As Elon Musk Preps Tesla’s Optimus for Prime Time, Big Hurdles Remain

When Elon Musk takes the stage at Tesla’s annual meeting next month, one of the centerpieces of his plan to impress shareholders will be a dancing troupe of Optimus bots, the humanoid machines that he...

www.theinformation.com

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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · 5d

From my previous company. This Sawyer ran for 35,236 hours in a factory in Oregon. You can move within its workspace, and grab it as it is operating. This is what real robots, real deployments, and real ROI are all about; productive, reliable, and safe operation. www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

So proud of Sawyer, from my previous company. We designed them to run for 30,000 hours. That is 15 years (= 15 x 50wks x 40 hrs) of human work. This one provided 17.5 years of productivity. And… |...

So proud of Sawyer, from my previous company. We designed them to run for 30,000 hours. That is 15 years (= 15 x 50wks x 40 hrs) of human work. This one provided 17.5 years of productivity. And Sawyer...

www.linkedin.com

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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · 7d

My attempt to establish cred as a humanoid realist may not be working as well as I hoped. Today I was offered a chance to invest in a pre-seed for a humanoid robot company that will have $1T (yes they said "T") revenues in 7 years. Repeat essay from last Friday: rodneybrooks.com/why-todays-h...

Why Today’s Humanoids Won’t Learn Dexterity – Rodney Brooks

rodneybrooks.com

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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · 9d

Just for the record this is a stupid headline. The robots are carrying out automated steps moving samples around and using vision to apply tools. They don't "know" what they are doing and certainly have no conception(!) of what a baby, human, or conception are. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Robots are learning to make human babies. Twenty have already been born.

One in six people of reproductive age suffer from infertility. Start-ups are using AI-powered robots to increase IVF success rates and lower costs.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · 10d

My 2nd law of robotics: When robots and people coexist in the same spaces, the robots must not take away from people’s agency, particularly when the robots are failing, as inevitably they will at times. -- Here it is cops stymied by Waymos. www.sfgate.com/bayarea/arti...

‘No driver, no hands, no clue’: Driverless car pulled over on Bay Area road

Police say they warned the company about the "glitch."

www.sfgate.com

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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · 14d

I have just finished and just published some weekend reading for you. 9,600 words of not easy reading, on why today's humanoid robots won't learn to be dexterous. rodneybrooks.com/why-todays-h...

Why Today’s Humanoids Won’t Learn Dexterity – Rodney Brooks

rodneybrooks.com

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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · 16d

A few months ago I sat down to talk with @bheater.bsky.social about humanoids, automation, and deploying them at scale. He published it on his automate outlet today. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qxO...

Rodney Brooks: The Truth About Humanoid Robots and AI Hype

YouTube video by Automated Podcast

www.youtube.com

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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · 20d

In 2011 I wrote a review of Alan Turing's 1948 paper Intelligent Machinery where he considered the case for embodied intelligence. My review was intended for a 2012 centenary celebration of Turing's birth, but no proceedings were published. So here it is. rodneybrooks.com/alan-turing-...

Alan Turing on Embodied Intelligence – Rodney Brooks

rodneybrooks.com

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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · 21d

This is a thoughtful review of the new book: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies. I might rephrase it in terms of 2 of my 7 deadly sins of predicting the future of AI: performance vs competence, & indistinguishability of sufficiently advanced technology from magic. www.theatlantic.com/books/archiv...

The Useful Idiots of AI Doomsaying

Those who predict that superintelligence will destroy humanity serve the same interests as those who believe that it will solve all of our problems.

www.theatlantic.com

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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · 24d

Our team at Robust AI makes robots more intuitive for real users. We're not replacing people, we are giving them superpowers with robots that understand when and how to help them. www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

| Robust.AI

Sign in or join now to see posts like this one and more.

www.linkedin.com

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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · 25d

This story says that there is yet another entrant in the humanoid space. Oh, good grief! www.wired.com/story/openai...

OpenAI Ramps Up Robotics Work in Race Toward AGI

The company behind ChatGPT is putting together a team capable of developing algorithms to control robots and appears to be hiring roboticists who work specifically on humanoids.

www.wired.com

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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · 26d

Tom Dietterich ‪@tdietterich.bsky.social‬ talks about the problem of AI generated papers being a virtual DOS attack on human reviewers, and suggests some new rules for this new situation.

Thomas Dietterich @tdietterich.bsky.social · 26d

We need new rules for publishing AI-generated research. The teams developing automated AI scientists have customarily submitted their papers to standard refereed venues (journals and conferences) and to arXiv. Often, acceptance has been treated as the dependent variable. 1/

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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · 28d

Evan Ackerman has been a thoughtful reporter on robotics for a decade or more @spectrum.ieee.org spectrum.ieee.org/humanoid-rob...

Reality Is Ruining the Humanoid Robot Hype

It takes more than building a humanoid robot to build a humanoid robot product.

spectrum.ieee.org

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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · Sep 8

Benjie Holson has come up with a humanoid robot Olympics, all events are trivial for real humans. generalrobots.substack.com/p/benjies-hu...

Benjie's Humanoid Olympic Games

A gauntlet thrown

generalrobots.substack.com

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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · Sep 7

Oh no. The book he is holding "The Promise of Artificial Intelligence" has been profoundly influential on me these last few years. It is his most concise book, and you have to want to read it as it is dense and deep. But it is a real treasure, as was Brian himself.

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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · Sep 5

5/5
Still, when
they make you write your poems, later on,
who’d envy you, force-fed
on all those variorum
editions of our primitive endeavors,
those frozen pemmican language-rations
they’ll cram you with? denied
our luxury of nausea, you
forget nothing, have no dreams.

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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · Sep 5

4/5
I’m sulking, clearly, in the great tradition
of human waste. Why not
dump the whole reeking snarl
and let you solve me once for all?
(Parameter: a black-faced Luddite
itching for ecstasies of sabotage.)

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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · Sep 5

3/5
You never had a mother,
let’s say? no digital Gertrude
whom you’d as lief have seen
Kingless? So your White Queen
was just an “operator.”
(My Red had incandescence,
ire, aura, flare,
and trapped me several moments in her stare.)

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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · Sep 5

2/5
Over the chessboard now,
Your Artificiality concludes
a final check; rests; broods—
no—sorts and stacks a file of memories,
while I
concede the victory, bow,
and slouch among my free associations.

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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · Sep 5

1/5 A poem by Adrienne Rich, 1961, titled "Artificial Intelligence" dedicated to GPS (of Newell and Simon). Eerily prophetic and a great description of LLMs "when they make you write your poetry, later on". On page 136 of this book: www.amazon.com/dp/039328511...

Collected Poems: 1950–2012

Collected Poems: 1950–2012 [Rich, Adrienne, Rankine, Claudia] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Collected Poems: 1950–2012

www.amazon.com

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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · Sep 5

2/5

Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · Sep 5

1/5 A poem titled "Artificial Intelligence" from 1961, dedicated to GPS (of Newell and Simon), by poet Adrienne Rich. Very prophetic, and eerily describes the how LLMs write poetry, "when they make you write your poems, later on". It is on page 136 of this book: www.amazon.com/dp/039328511...

Collected Poems: 1950–2012

Collected Poems: 1950–2012 [Rich, Adrienne, Rankine, Claudia] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Collected Poems: 1950–2012

www.amazon.com

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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · Sep 2

2/2 continuing...‘The technology ‘will provide tools to effectively combat poverty, clean up our environment, overcome disease, extend human longevity, and many other worthwhile pursuits.’ And remember, this was Kurzweil's book about the Singularity in human history powered by AI, coming in 2029.

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Rodney Brooks @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social · Sep 2

1/2 AI pipe dreams. ‘[N]anotechnology-based manufacturing devices in the 2020s will be capable of creating almost any physical product from inexpensive raw materials and information,’ Kurzweil wrote in his book The Singularity Is Near (2005).’ aeon.co/essays/no-su...

No suffering, no death, no limits: the nanobots pipe dream | Aeon Essays

Thirty years ago, nanotech was about to change everything. Let’s not get tricked again by Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

aeon.co

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