The Robot Report Podcast
00:58:04 · Scott Kuindersma, Steve Crowe
[00:58:04] S4: Yeah. So that's something we're super excited about. Obviously, one of the big... You know, Hyundai is likely to be our our biggest, most important first customer as as they announced. And so we're really excited about Atlas doing work in their facilities. So we're planning on taking Atlas to some Hyundai facilities this year, and I'm sure we'll tell everyone about it when we're ready. [00:58:27] S0: That's awesome. Can't wait for that. They must be... I know they're... They just made a couple massive announcements about manufacturing back here in The States and how much robotics will be a part of that. They sound like a great partner. Just to wrap things up, I know you've obviously seen the evolution of Atlas in your time at Boston Dynamics. You've seen the evolution of these new training techniques. What's next for Atlas? What can we see besides the Hyundai trials? And how excited are all of you guys about where this is all headed? [00:58:56] S4: Yeah, I mean, we're very excited. I think you're gonna see more and more AI centric results from us. I think we're really committed to trying to break through the ceiling for humanoid manipulation. So I think you should look forward to more exciting things, both on the manipulation front as well as on the very on brand dynamic behavior front.
00:58:56 · Scott Kuindersma, Steve Crowe, Mike Oitzman
[00:58:56] S4: Yeah, I mean, we're very excited. I think you're gonna see more and more AI centric results from us. I think we're really committed to trying to break through the ceiling for humanoid manipulation. So I think you should look forward to more exciting things, both on the manipulation front as well as on the very on brand dynamic behavior front. [00:59:23] S0: Awesome. Well, we look forward to all of it and let us know anytime we can report on all this stuff as we love to see what's going on with Atlas. So Scott Kuindersma, VP of robotics research at Boston Dynamics. Thank you so much for being here, man. Thank you. Yeah. Just just fascinating stuff. I will say, I haven't received a call yet to to be the guy behind the camera, Mike, with the hockey stick that's messing with Atlas. Volunteered for that position because that just seems fun, you know, being able to... I wonder if they... And I should have asked this, like, they have parameters for that person? Like, here are things that you can do to mess with Atlas. Here are things that you can do to mess with Atlas because it's not able to recover uncertain things. I should have asked about that. And I also should have asked about... I don't if you remember at at the robotics summit earlier this year, we had former Boston Dynamics CTO, Aaron Saunders. He opened the show talking about Atlas and and all sorts of things that they're doing. But they talked about... And they showed some videos of people wearing those motion capture suits. Yep. [01:00:26] S1: Right.
01:00:26 · Steve Crowe
[01:00:26] S0: And how they can translate those behaviors and movements onto the Atlas humanoid without, a ton of tweaking that's needed at the end. And Scott talked a little bit about that for data collection, but I think there's so much more going on in that space that we should continue to unpack. I think it's just fascinating. Like Scott said, they're not 100% sure why large behaviour models work so well. It's sort of like that black box effect that is often talked about with artificial intelligence. But it's just amazing how, you know, there's a quote that Scott had and it's in the blog that Boston Dynamics posted about this, just about how much easier it's becoming to teach robots how to do things and how to manipulate objects. Like they're saying, you don't need PhD level education to do this stuff anymore. Yeah. Which is crazy. And they actually believe that. So if that is true and it continues to advance, you know, like we've always talked about, in order for robotics to scale, they need to be easier to build, easier to use, easier to train. And, you know, maybe this is the start of it. Obviously a long way to go, which they'll tell you right off the bat, but it's just very, very exciting times for humanoids, but really robot learning in general. I think, this is some cool stuff. And again, you know, I know we mentioned the Robotics Summit twenty twenty six. It's coming up, very far away, May twenty seventh and twenty eighth in Boston. This is our flagship show. But, Russ Tedrake of Toyota Research Institute, he's leading all the research that they're doing on Large Behavior Models. We've already confirmed him for a keynote at the Robotics Summit this spring. So he said that they'll have new results of what they're doing with Large Behavior Models and testing by then that they're going to be excited to share with the robotics world. So, I know Robo Business is still a month away and we're full steam ahead for that show, Mike, but we're already planning for the Robotics Summit twenty twenty six in Boston. And pretty thrilled to have Russ Tedrake of TRI as one of our keynote speakers. I think he joined us a couple years ago on an AI panel that you led. Right?
01:02:40 · Mike Oitzman
[01:02:40] S1: Yeah. That was very interesting. Great speaker. Hey. Let's not forget. We're opening a call for speakers here shortly. So
01:02:48 · Steve Crowe
[01:02:48] S0: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So, Russ is great. But, again, thank you to, Scott Kuindersma from Boston Dynamics. Awesome awesome stuff that they're working on. And, yeah, can't wait for the next Atlas video to drop, and we'll we'll let you guys know when that happens. Again, one last quick plug of Robo Business takes place October fifteenth and sixteenth out in Santa Clara, California. Again, focusing on, commercial robotics development, running a robotics business. That's something that you do. This is going to be a great couple of days for you. Over 2,000 people there, 100 plus exhibitors on our show floor talking developing humanoids, developing other robots, the latest in enabling technologies. What's the investment landscape like? What are some of the challenges of running a robotics business? You're going to hear some success stories and some failures from some startups that are going to join us. We have three startup pavilions on the show floor, Mike. MassRobotics put one together for us, Abyss Residence Startups. KAIST is joining us, showing off a pavilion of Korean robotics startups. We put together our own startups. So there's going to be like 30 or 40 startups alone in addition to the 100 exhibitors on the show floor. So it's going be a lot of fun. If you want to join us, you can head over to robobusiness.com. There's still plenty of time to buy your tickets. If you have any questions, reach out to any one of us here at The Robot Report as we are the producers of Robo Business. But again, going be a couple of great days. October fifteenth and sixteenth out in Santa Clara for Robo Business. Really hope to see you guys all there. And that's going do it for episode two twelve of the Robot Report Podcast. Thank you again to everybody for tuning into the show. Big thank you to Scott Kuindersma and Boston Dynamics for joining us on the show today. New episodes of the Robot Report Podcast drop each week. You can find us anywhere you listen to your podcast. Please subscribe, give us a rating, give us a review. This episode was produced by Mike Oitzman. It was edited by Tyler Kubisti. Our executive producer is Courtney Nagel. I'm Steve Crowe. Thanks so much folks for tuning in. Have a great weekend and we'll talk to you again next week.