AI being helpful thread

[EscapedSuburbia]

One cool thing I see AI doing is in model generation. You're now able to take a photo of something and AI will create a 3 dimensional model of it that can be 3D printed. One example I saw is a guy fed a picture of himself into an AI website that pooped out an action figure of himself that he 3D printed. Another was a picture of a dog that was used to generate a 3D model. Note that these weren't the standard photogrammetry that stitches together a bunch of photos from different angles to create a model - they're creating models from a single photograph using AI to assume what the overall shape will be. There are a couple of online sites offering the service but they're all paid apps.

I'm not interested in action figures or a 3D model of my dog, but it could be a real time saver for solving problems with complex geometries. For example, several years ago I needed to make something to mount an ADSB transmitter to the wingtip of my wife's plane. It was a compound curve and took me several iterations to get right. Being able to model it with a couple pictures would have been pretty handy.

 

[scootr]

I did years of masonry work. Like to see this bricklaying machine climb a scaffold and lay brick standing on a plank...I don't think that machine will replace anybody soon.

 

[scootr]

What about robot companions > could be helpful. I would be interested in an affordable Optimus robot one day

 

[ponytug]

I do think like previous fads (multimedia, .com, etc.), lots of things are getting "AI" labels slapped on them for marketing and fundraising reasons.

Having taught computers to perform as vision systems in the past, I do agree that it isn't as simple as programming the machine to toss anything that doesn't look like the M8-1.25 bolt in the training set.

My favorite non-AI machine vision use is sorting deadly nightshade seeds from green peas. Birds and rabbits drop seeds in fields that end up getting the nightshade combined in with the peas.

Eventually the costs dropped on the sorters, and they are used for foreign object removal across the spectrum of fresh foods.

A close second are the laser scanner / fish fillet machines.

Neither is "AI"in my book, but that doesn't mean that they aren't of value.

Today's systems will get replaced with more accurate and more robust versions. I know of a ChatGPT competitive model that runs on a Raspberry Pi, but I wouldn't trust either one as a general purpose system to drive a car or semi-truck.

A thing to bear in mind is that today the common form of AI (LLMs) these days is built with tensorflow, aka neural networks, which aren't terribly efficient, nor terribly precise. Facebook's parent, Meta, just lost its head of AI, Yann LeCun, because Zuckerberg is all in on LLMs, and Yann LeCun believes that other systems are likely to be better. Client Challenge

Having experience with a number of systems, I am in LeCun's camp, but I think that this is still very much the early days. I just hope that we don't end up here;

All the best,

Peter

 

[KennyG]

AI really doesn't have an agreed upon meaning. The brick laying machine doesn't really need anything like AI anymore than a CNC machining system needs it. You tell it exactly what it should do and it does it. It keeps the walls straight and the corners square in the same way your self driving car stays between the lines.

The next step up is reinforcement learning. My son does robotic development. They wanted to make sure the robot stayed on it's feet. They built a computer model of the machine response and fed in various external forces, uneven ground, steps, etc. and simulated the response thousands of times. Everytime the simulated robot fell, it discarded that response and tried another. They now have a robot that's almost impossible to fall down but it's not AI. They don't know exactly what the computer now tells the robot to do, but it's because the programming has altered itself to respond in a successful way. My son is emphatic that it isn't AI, it's reinforcement learning.

 

[3930dave]

AI really doesn't have an agreed upon meaning. The brick laying machine doesn't really need anything like AI anymore than a CNC machining system needs it. You tell it exactly what it should do and it does it. It keeps the walls straight and the corners square in the same way your self driving car stays between the lines.

The next step up is reinforcement learning. My son does robotic development. They wanted to make sure the robot stayed on it's feet. They built a computer model of the machine response and fed in various external forces, uneven ground, steps, etc. and simulated the response thousands of times. Everytime the simulated robot fell, it discarded that response and tried another. They now have a robot that's almost impossible to fall down but it's not AI. They don't know exactly what the computer now tells the robot to do, but it's because the programming has altered itself to respond in a successful way. My son is emphatic that it isn't AI, it's reinforcement learning.

So, perhaps one-day, even that ^ level of machine-learning might be able to teach humans to not make the same mistake over and over and over.... again.... ?

Hmmm.....

Rgds, D.

 

[MossRoad]

 

[DarkBlack]

Robots falling down everywhere in the world, but NBC makes a headline segment using Russia’s

 

[MossRoad]

Robots falling down everywhere in the world, but NBC makes a headline segment using Russia’s

What was comical about it was the guys trying to pull the sheet over it.

 

[DarkBlack]

What was comical about it was the guys trying to pull the sheet over it.

Agreed