The Iferia Techcast
00:07:45 · Krishna Kumar Sharma, Ezekiel Iferia
[00:07:45] S1: I would say like we are not very far away maybe. So basic task, can do it today already. And maybe a bit more complex tasks, it will require one to two years more. So the tech which we have built, we are already able to command robots through very simple tasks like going across a parameter, trying to scan the area, trying to send the signals, etc. Very basic things are already working out. And now if you want to do a bit more complex task, example, you have a robot and you want this robot to act like your personal butler, and then this robot should be able to do multiple tasks, right? Like, I don't know, fold your clothes or bring you a glass of water, all these different kinds of things easily. Currently, like, you have to teach robots one individual task at a time, and then giving all the task... Different task at once is still a bit difficult. But the way we are progressing fast, I think in one to two years, it will be possible that you have a robot which understands hundreds of different tasks already and can... And is able to perform all of them as per your wishes. [00:09:07] S0: Interesting. So, you know, we do see videos, you know, of companies coming with humanoid robots to do, you know, a demo, and we see them give the robot instructions and they start maybe showing their dance moves, start doing back flips, and all of that. But can you give us a specific example of maybe a military or industrial use case where this would actually be a real game changer?
00:09:36 · Krishna Kumar Sharma
[00:09:36] S1: Yeah. So example... A very simple example is about we have currently... Maybe I'll start with the industrial use case. So world is currently aging, especially the Western world. And this year, Japan has ordered millions of care giving robots which can come and help the old people and support them. So, here, if the robots understand what are the different tasks they have to do, for example, giving them medication on time, making sure where the medication is stored. If some old person is having some sort of memory disease, then the robot is able to keep an eye and see, Oh, this person is doing some action, should not be doing, then immediately going and stopping them. This already becomes like some of the immediate household examples. Now, a bit more industrial examples are of robots are basically assembling different products. So currently, there are factories which do not have any human. So they have facilities where they are building the parts, then the robots, like humanoid robots, goes and they take the part from one place to another. In data centers, they are actually using robots to take the servers out, put the cables in in the appropriate place, and then put the server back into the place, change the hard disk, etcetera. In the defense, the use cases are many. So in defense, currently drones are getting used more that you send a swarm of drones across the enemy, and then these drones can automatically identify an enemy and then go and attack the enemy. Or these drones can see the enemy and then track the enemy. Or the drones see a missile coming from the enemy and try to intercept it. So in defense, the drones are being used massively in like hundreds, the quantity of drones getting used are in like 100 thousands or even millions in the recent wars, basically. Some more use cases which I can see of robots and defense is very simple, that you put a humanoid or a dog robot. You put some cameras and sensors on top of it, and then this robot can go and see the dangerous locations. And if they see a suspicious person approaching or something out of ordinary, they can give the signal back to the humans. Or if you have, I don't know, some suspicious object somewhere, instead of a human going and checking it and then blowing away maybe due to... Because it's something dangerous, you can just send a robot, and robot can try to disarm it.
00:12:27 · Krishna Kumar Sharma, Ezekiel Iferia
There are, like, multiple examples, and I have just said a few. [00:12:34] S0: Alright. Alright. Thank you very much for sharing that with us in really insightful response indeed, Krishna. So, you know, technology is is is rapidly changing. It literally changes daily, weekly. So I like to know what can you do today, you know, in the robotic space that we couldn't really do, like, say, five years ago?
00:12:59 · Krishna Kumar Sharma
[00:12:59] S1: Yeah. So currently, if some things which you can easily do, which were impossible to think five years ago is basically training the robot's real world tasks, basically. So you might have seen the video of, like, you know, a robot, like, folding a cloth. Right? Like, folding a shirt or something. It looks like a simple thing, but it is basically very difficult because robots don't see the world the way we see. They see the world in kind of a multidimensional space, and for every point in the space is basically a mathematical equation. And now to do a dynamic task, multiple mathematical equations, like, you know, millions of calculations has to be happening in parallel in terms of division, in terms of the way robots arms, like, you know, the limbs, the actuators work, the way they are able to their fingers are working. Because imagine now, we are basically developing an artificial brain, like real artificial brain, like a nervous system. So, if a robot is able to go and walk and pick things up and fold clothes, basically, now they have some sort of a nervous system that they are able to do in hand eye coordination. Previously, it used to take years to train a robot, like one simple task. But now, companies are able to do it within a span of week or two, basically, that you give them... You feed them a lot of information about how to do a particular task, either via videos or using special devices, and then robots learn it very fast. Now there are also something called world model, where a robot can actually perceive the entire world. And even if a robot has not seen a task, it can try to do it somehow. And if the task is not very complicated, robots are able to do it themselves automatically within a day. So the speed at which machines are learning stuff and understanding the world has gone at an... Gone up at exponential rate compared to what was possible few years ago.
00:15:16 · Ezekiel Iferia
[00:15:16] S0: Alright. Alright. That was a really, you know, eye opening response. So, Krishna, you know, you you talk about the world moving toward sovereign AI, you know. You know, What what, you know, does that mean for a country's security? You know? Why why are nations starting to treat AI like they treat nuclear technology or intelligence?
00:15:45 · Krishna Kumar Sharma
[00:15:45] S1: Yeah. Basically, like, this is a very good question. And in terms of, like, why AI is getting treated as nuclear technology, the answer is that, like, AI is, like, one of those technology which is, like, revolutionizing the way we perceive the world. The the major thing which AI is able to do is that it is able to scale things beyond what we were able to scale before. Example, like, recently when Israel started attacks in Lebanon or Iran, they were able to attack at multiple locations at the same time with very pinpoint precision, like such a precision that I'm sitting here in my bed, and then a missile came. It did not destroy the entire building. It just dug a hole in my wall and only blasted my bed. So imagine this is the level of precision at which you are able to control weapons with the help of AI. And of course, when something is too powerful, you do not want other nations to have it. The same thing happened with nuclear weapons because they were able to do mass destruction. And now with the AI, you are able to do the similar level of destruction. So if it is not a real weapon, then using AI, you can do cyber warfare, you can do propaganda, you can do a lot of different dangerous things, right? And then every nation would want that they have the most powerful weapon so that they have the biggest stake to scare everyone away. This is the reason why sovereignty comes into picture because like seventy years ago, every nation wanted a nuclear power, nuclear weapon, so that maybe they don't want to attack, but they want to defend themselves or not get pushed around. The same way now AI is important that if you don't have this power, you will get pushed around by powers who are really controlling the AI.