Well, a controlled factory is a lot different that a construction site. Trash piles, weather, out of square, imperfect materials, errors in initial set up, ect. Not to say it can't overcome these, but factory automation is easier
That's true and another way to tell the bricklaying video was just standard automation. Notice that it's only laying bricks in a straight line and there is a solid material path on the ground for the robot to roll back and forth on. It's not dealing with corners, curves, debris on the ground, etc. If it's AI let's see it build a stone wall around a corner with as-found stone shapes on sloped ground.
As someone who has spent a lifetime living in and repairing old stone houses, I'd guess it's probably easier to build an AI-powered robot to do this work today, than it is to find a competent and available stone mason in the last few years.
All of the good ones around here are retirement age or older, and all their schedules are fully booked if they're at all reasonable and good.
First you say it's just standard automation, then you say AI is just starting to be applied to vision systems... which is exactly what this company has done. Plus they're using it in other aspects of the total project, not just the vision system.... it's using AI.
Nah. Bricks are uniform in size so they're easy for vision to recognize. The wall is in a straight line so it's easy to follow both mechanically and with vision. The bricks aren't being picked out a random pile - they're being fed to the robot in a very controlled way so they can be picked up repeatably and the robot will know exactly where its edges are. It uses the exact same amount of mortar on every brick which is very easy to automate. It's rolling on a clear path on a mat. Everything about this is easy to do with standard automation. There's no AI happening here except a company using those two letters to get investors.
So now you're saying they aren't using AI in the vision system?
Doubtful because there wouldn't be any need. Locating a simple rectangle like a brick is incredibly easy. Big players in machine vision like Cognex and Keyence are building AI into some of their systems but it's a feature you pay extra for. You wouldn't pay extra for it in this case because it's such an easy application of machine vision. You spend that money on the tough problems.
I did. The article claims they're using AI without a single detail. It doesn't say what problem AI is solving, what decisions it's making, or why AI is necessary for such a straightforward automation problem. Just the simple claim that they're using AI. It looks like yet another company using the term AI to rope in investors. There are real problems being solved by AI. This isn't one of them.
