00:17:19 · Katie Prescott, Brennand Pierce
[00:17:19] S4: We have covered this in a in a different capacity before when we looked at WAVE driverless cars, because they got footage from Ocado vans and Astavans of of people driving, essentially. And and that's how they created their model. So it's quite similar. [00:17:34] S9: It's exactly the same. The advantage, like, large language models had was they could scrape scrape the Internet. Another way that, you know, the AI used to be trained, if you used to go to websites, and it would literally ask you what is a bucket, and you had to click it. Yeah. And that was you training an AI model. So that's how they could train the image classification, how they could learn language. For a robot, you basically have to get a robot to do the task. Historically, that is it. As you were saying before, Figr and some other companies claim that you could just wear a camera on your head. I don't know if that's been proven, but I think it's like all this mixture. You still need a lot of different data coming in because all the things you need is like the contact forces of the... A griffle, like how how much do you squash something if you're picking up Hold an egg. Holding an egg. [00:18:19] S4: Or a grape. [00:18:20] S9: A grape. Or you're picking up like sushi compared to like, I need to pick up a bolt. So you need all of this, what we call multimodalities. So you need forces. You need cameras. You need sound. You need all of these sensors to come into the robot, and you just need an incredible amount of data.
00:18:20 · Brennand Pierce, Danny Fortson, Katie Prescott, S0, S1, S2, S3, S5, S6
[00:18:20] S9: A grape. Or you're picking up like sushi compared to like, I need to pick up a bolt. So you need all of this, what we call multimodalities. So you need forces. You need cameras. You need sound. You need all of these sensors to come into the robot, and you just need an incredible amount of data. [00:18:42] S8: Today's episode of the Times Tech Podcast is sponsored by ServiceNow. [00:18:46] S4: ServiceNow describes itself as an AI control tower for business reinvention, connecting people, systems, data, and AI so work flows more smoothly across an organization. [00:18:57] S8: The platform integrates with different clouds, models, and data sources, bringing them together in one place to help your team. [00:19:03] S4: To learn more about how ServiceNow puts AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com. [00:19:12] S0: People are disappearing again just like before. [00:19:17] S1: Nocturne. Streaming on Apple TV on the October 30. Lief Schreiber. [00:19:23] S2: Walter has a way of getting people. When he does, [00:19:25] S1: they don't come back. Steven Graham. The world [00:19:28] S3: is full of dark places. Zarcee Beats. [00:19:31] S4: How's he getting messages at? [00:19:32] S5: He's locked under six feet of concrete. [00:19:34] S0: She's still alive. [00:19:35] S6: I'm a fighter. [00:19:36] S1: Nocturne. Streaming on Apple TV on the October 30. Subscription required.
00:19:36 · S1, S7, Katie Prescott, Brennand Pierce
[00:19:36] S1: Nocturne. Streaming on Apple TV on the October 30. Subscription required. [00:19:42] S7: This episode is brought to you by Capital One. Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi agentic AI. They already deployed one. It's called Chat Concierge, and it's simplifying car shopping. Using self reflection and layered reasoning with live API checks, it doesn't just help buyers find a car they love. It helps schedule a test drive, get preapproved for financing, and estimate trade in value. Advanced, intuitive, and deployed. That's how they stack. That's technology at Capital One. [00:20:18] S4: Brent, we will get some pictures of your robots for people watching this on YouTube. But for people listening, describe your robot and also explain to us how you came up with that design. Because something I've noticed about the humanoid robot world, which you two will be very familiar with, is they don't always look identical. They don't look like, you know, one might expect. [00:20:39] S9: Yeah. Even though my passion is like humanoids with legs, one of the things I learned over the years is money matters when it comes to selling these. So having like, I think it's about 14 or 15 expensive motors to actually make a robot walk around is cool. But in reality, if you just work in a warehouse or factory, it is much easier just to have it on a wheeled base. So it has like two arms. [00:21:04] S4: I completely agree. [00:21:05] S9: And the torso just goes up and up and down. [00:21:07] S4: I've long thought the leg thing. It's just completely ludicrous.
00:21:07 · Katie Prescott, Brennand Pierce, Danny Fortson
[00:21:07] S4: I've long thought the leg thing. It's just completely ludicrous. [00:21:11] S9: It is cool, though. It is cool. To what end? It is. I don't know. It's... It it it raises you a lot of money in the VC industry. [00:21:19] S8: It's not the it's not the answer to the idea that, like, we have built... The built environment is for bipedal humans. And if you're trying to drive mass adoption, you need to just drop a robot into those environments where they can walk upstairs and walk downstairs as opposed to having to, like, remake the built environment to accommodate this new army of droids who are gonna pick up our stuff and crush our grapes. [00:21:45] S9: Yep. That is actually a true argument. I do think there will be a a a need for a humanoid with legs, but then you also go... The environment also built for people with wheelchairs that can get around quite happily. Right. And it's much simpler. And it's also just, I think, my experience... [00:21:59] S4: You should be using them in factories. [00:22:01] S9: Yeah. Exactly. It also just comes down to just me as a founder, what do you want to concentrate on? The hardest part is the manipulation. Can you pick up an object? Can you, you know, make a box? Can you do the task? Why overcomplicate it with the legs? [00:22:16] S4: So you've got arms? So yours doesn't have... You've you've got a wheel? [00:22:19] S9: We got two wheels. [00:22:20] S4: Two wheels. How high? [00:22:22] S9: It's about six foot one eighty high. [00:22:24] S4: Almost Danny height, not quite, reaching [00:22:27] S8: the But
00:22:27 · Danny Fortson, Katie Prescott, Brennand Pierce
[00:22:27] S8: the But [00:22:28] S4: but two arms. [00:22:29] S9: Two arms. [00:22:30] S4: With five fingers? [00:22:31] S9: No. That's another thing. Alright. It's like, keep it... I I would love to have a five finger hand if it's cheap, but they're about £30,000 straight dollars each. [00:22:40] S8: For each hand? [00:22:41] S9: Per hand. Per hand. Yes. That is how much these expensive hands are. Yes. Whereas... [00:22:47] S4: God. So they have pin... Did two fingers? [00:22:49] S9: Two fingers pinchers. Brilliant. Eventually, I'd love five finger hands as well, but it also comes back to what do you concentrate on. At the moment, if you just wanted to pick a lot of items up from a from a tote or do a lot of this manipulation, it's incredible what you can do with just two fingers. [00:23:04] S4: Yeah. Amazing. [00:23:05] S9: Pick up cups. You can pick up... [00:23:06] S4: And a flexible arm? [00:23:08] S9: Oh, yes. Seven degrees of freedom. So it's you've an elbow? Yeah. It's the same articulation as a human arm. [00:23:13] S4: Okay. And then on the head? What does that look like? [00:23:16] S9: Very very droided. It has eyes? I mean, you can't... Has eyes. Yes. It has eyes. You gotta, you know, make it semi look like a person.
00:23:16 · Brennand Pierce, Danny Fortson
[00:23:16] S9: Very very droided. It has eyes? I mean, you can't... Has eyes. Yes. It has eyes. You gotta, you know, make it semi look like a person. [00:23:26] S8: So getting back to, like, the actual use. Right? If you talk to people out here who are in this world, they're like, look. We have, I can't remember the number, many hundreds of thousands or even millions of open factory jobs, like work in warehouses that they can't fill with actual humans. Is that the the the entree? Is that realistic? Is that where, like, we... When you hear Elon Musk be like, oh, by 2031 or whatever, we're gonna have a million or maybe a billion humanoid robots or whatever his crazy numbers are. Is that where we start? Is that there is a real need, and you do actually have companies who are like, yeah. Yeah. Give us all the droids. We actually need this.