In this episode, Hannah is joined by Carolina Parada, Senior Director and Head of Robotics at Google DeepMind. They explore the recent leap forward in robotic capabilities, highlighting advancements in multimodal understanding and embodied reasoning, which enable robots to interact with the physical world with unprecedented generality.
They dig into the two-system approach – ‘slow and fast thinking‘ – that enables both complex reasoning and rapid, reactive movements. Using examples from robots learning dexterous tasks such as tying shoelaces to adapting to entirely new scenarios in real-time, Parada highlights how key breakthroughs in understanding, dexterity, and control are now coming together to rapidly advance robotics unlike ever before.
Further reading/viewing:
Timecodes:
00:00 Introduction
01:46 Carolina’s background
02:57 Current state of robotics
05:20 Gemini robotics videos
12:45 Conceptual understanding & multimodal capabilities
16:50 Embodied reasoning
21:00 Thinking fast and slow
27:44 Emerging properties
24:53 Looking back
34:28 Sim2real gap
37:00 Safety
42:00 Work to be done
45:00 Hannah’s thoughts
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Thanks to everyone who made this possible, including but not limited to:
Presenter: Professor Hannah Fry
Series Producer: Dan Hardoon
Editor: Rami Tzabar
Commissioner & Producer: Emma Yousif
Music composition: Eleni Shaw
Audio engineer: Richard Courtice
Production Manager: Dan Lazard
Studio Manager: Nicholas Duke
Video Director: Bernardo Resende
Video Editor: Alex Baro Cayetano, Bilal Merhi
Audio Engineer: Perry Rogantin
Camera and Lighting Operator: Robert Messere
Production Coordination: Zoey Roberts, Sarah Ellen Morton
Visual Identity and Design: Rob Ashley
Commissioned by Google DeepMind
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