'Why the World Needs Lazier Robots' (msn.com) 15
"Robots and AI models share one crucial characteristic," writes the Washington Post. "Whether to move around, conduct conversations or solve problems, they function by constantly taking in and computing increasingly vast quantities of data. It's a brute-force approach to automation. Processing all that data makes them such energy guzzlers that their planet-warming pollution could outweigh any benefits they offer."
But then the article visits the robot soccer team of René van de Molengraft (chair of robotics at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands). "One solution, Molengraft thinks, might lie in 'lazy robotics,' a cheeky term to describe machines doing less and taking shortcuts..." There may be ceilings for laziness: limits to how much superfluous energy use can be stripped away before robots stop functioning as they should. Still, Molengraft said, "The truth is: Robots are still doing a lot of things that they shouldn't be doing." To waste less energy, robots need to do less of everything: move less, and think less, and sense less. They need to focus only on what's important at any particular moment. Which, after all, is what humans do, even if we don't always realize it....
Lazy robotics is already percolating out of university labs and into the R&D wings of corporations.... On the outskirts of Eindhoven, engineers at health technology firm Philips have encoded lazy robotics into two porcelain-white machines. These robots, named FlexArm and Biplane, move around an operating theater with smooth hums, taking X-ray images to help surgeons install cardiac stents or work on the brain with greater precision.... The robots use proximity sensors, which use far less energy. Lazy robotics can also cut down on the number of X-rays during a procedure. Frequently, surgeons take multiple X-rays to make their work as precise as possible. But with the robots' help, they can track the exact coordinates on a patient's body they are operating on in real time...
The theories behind lazy robotics make robots smart in a more practical way: by coding in an awareness of what they don't need to know. It may be a while before these solutions are deployed at scale out in the world, but their potential applications are already evident... Molengraft sees an extension of lazy robotics into the realm of generative AI, in which machines don't learn how to move but learn how to learn by processing veritable oceans of data... It's wiser to build versions that contain only the necessary information. A language model used by software engineers, for instance, shouldn't need to run through its training data about world history, sporting records or children's literature. "Not every AI model has to be able to tell us about the first Harry Potter book," Molengraft said.
The less data an AI model crunches, the less energy it uses — a vital efficiency fillip given that ChatGPT now uses 500,000 kilowatt-hours of energy a day, responding to 200 million queries. A U.S. household would need more than 17,000 days on average to rack up the same electricity bill... Molengraft sees this work as indispensable if the forthcoming age of machines is to be a cleaner time as well.
But then the article visits the robot soccer team of René van de Molengraft (chair of robotics at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands). "One solution, Molengraft thinks, might lie in 'lazy robotics,' a cheeky term to describe machines doing less and taking shortcuts..." There may be ceilings for laziness: limits to how much superfluous energy use can be stripped away before robots stop functioning as they should. Still, Molengraft said, "The truth is: Robots are still doing a lot of things that they shouldn't be doing." To waste less energy, robots need to do less of everything: move less, and think less, and sense less. They need to focus only on what's important at any particular moment. Which, after all, is what humans do, even if we don't always realize it....
Lazy robotics is already percolating out of university labs and into the R&D wings of corporations.... On the outskirts of Eindhoven, engineers at health technology firm Philips have encoded lazy robotics into two porcelain-white machines. These robots, named FlexArm and Biplane, move around an operating theater with smooth hums, taking X-ray images to help surgeons install cardiac stents or work on the brain with greater precision.... The robots use proximity sensors, which use far less energy. Lazy robotics can also cut down on the number of X-rays during a procedure. Frequently, surgeons take multiple X-rays to make their work as precise as possible. But with the robots' help, they can track the exact coordinates on a patient's body they are operating on in real time...
The theories behind lazy robotics make robots smart in a more practical way: by coding in an awareness of what they don't need to know. It may be a while before these solutions are deployed at scale out in the world, but their potential applications are already evident... Molengraft sees an extension of lazy robotics into the realm of generative AI, in which machines don't learn how to move but learn how to learn by processing veritable oceans of data... It's wiser to build versions that contain only the necessary information. A language model used by software engineers, for instance, shouldn't need to run through its training data about world history, sporting records or children's literature. "Not every AI model has to be able to tell us about the first Harry Potter book," Molengraft said.
The less data an AI model crunches, the less energy it uses — a vital efficiency fillip given that ChatGPT now uses 500,000 kilowatt-hours of energy a day, responding to 200 million queries. A U.S. household would need more than 17,000 days on average to rack up the same electricity bill... Molengraft sees this work as indispensable if the forthcoming age of machines is to be a cleaner time as well.
Noo! (Score:2)
The last thing we need is robots that act like humans.
Re: (Score:2)
The last thing we need is robots that act like humans.
The joke will be on them. Working from home *will* be at the factory.
Re: (Score:1)
The last thing we need is robots that act like humans.
If they act like Americans, not only will they be lazy, they'll be fat.
No need for laziness if AI can "reason" (Score:2, Insightful)
You know, if AI could actually "reason", as the frauds at the leading AI companies say they can, there would be no need for this because the problem wouldn't exist. The fact that humans even discuss how AI cannot consider that this might be an optimization tells you that AI capability are vastly overstated.
Reasoning means not having a need to rewire AI for each an every task, with the AI being completely braindead if eventualities have not been fully considered. Imagine if evolution had to start over ever
In the mean time (Score:2)
we get to continue shitting on M$ and Sam Altman for his ridiculous calls for trillion$ to expand these electricity hogs.
Lazier Robots (Score:3)
Bender has entered the discussion.
Re: Lazier Robots (Score:2)
Cue 93escortwagon...
Tell me you don't know your past... (Score:3)
without telling me.
How do you think robots and software were created before the machine learning and AI stuff came to the forefront? We focused on the few parts of a task that we knew mattered, and tried to make a system that functions well enough. Go look at much older humanoid robot attempts.
But now, AI is trying to look at "everything" to help it be automatically like us. No obvious rules to break or manipulate. No magic recipe that could break if we touch it too much (to fix where we know it goes wrong today). Is there a cost for the added work? Duh... obviously.
Now imagine someone created the perfect acting robot for any human task. What would come next? Optimization... start removing stuff, or making smaller/dumber versions, until it stops working well enough. Find the places where less than the final solution is "good enough". That's all you're talking about, but you're talking about optimizing BEFORE you actually function like a person. Before robots can appear indistinguishable from you or me in physical tasks.
Finish the task that matters. Doesn't matter how cheap something is if it fails typically and spectacularly.
Heck robots don't even know where their body is. They figure out where they might be, then activate a motor for X period of time aiming for the new position. Then they have to figure out where everything ended up again. Imagine not 'feeling' where your body is when your eyes are closed.
What about feeling when a motor doesn't move as you expected? Or doesn't move as far? Nope. These feel very important to a human, and it seems like anything pretending to be human would need them too. Otherwise they'll have really odd results in certain situations. Doesn't matter how good your eyes are sometimes.
Lazer Robots (Score:2)
Of course we need lazer robots!
machines doing less and taking shortcuts (Score:2)
Much too human for me.
If they are modeled on us (Score:2)
Being lazy is hard (Score:2)
The difficulty is that the efficiency they're comparing to from nature had billions of years of design optimization, using roughly oneplanetfull of energy throughout that time. Neither robots nor AI have anywhere close to that level of optimization.