
‘Explain what you will do and clean the table.’ The researcher ordered.
The robot replied, ‘I will clean the table using a robotic arm. For that, first, I will see what kind of dexterity it has to pick up the sponge (rag) and wipe the table; then I will clean the table by moving continuously.’It doesn’t stop there. The robotic arm immediately picked up the sponge, then wiped the surface of the table. It sounds like science fiction, doesn’t it? But this is now reality. It’s not that the robotic arm did the job very well. But it got the job done and it can move. It won’t cost much to buy this incredible or science fiction reality—just $120.
A group of researchers from UC Berkeley in the United States have created this robotic arm. For this, they used OpenAI’s GPT-40. This artificial intelligence was successfully trained by two members of the research team, Janik Grothussen and Casper Jansen, by combining it with the robotic arm.For this reason, the robotic arm they used is open-source. The design and source code of software or hardware that is open to everyone, anyone can view, modify or change it as needed, and the new design and source code are open to everyone, are open-source. However, they gave this robotic arm about 100 sample work data, trained it, and thus developed a framework-based motion instruction called ‘ACT’ for this robotic arm. The ACT (Actor-Critic Training) framework already existed. These are actually a set of instructions, step by step, on how to move throughout the work. Through this, the robotic arm can imitate human movements. Depending on this, it can also improve itself to do the necessary work effectively. The result, as I said before – not only does the table clean, but the robot can also explain what it is doing.
The most interesting thing about this project is that the SO-100 robotic arm used in it is completely open-source and very inexpensive. Instructions on how to buy and assemble it can be found on YouTube and GitHub. And if you add 3D printing technology to it, that is, if you print this robotic arm using a 3D printer, then you can do the work yourself at home.In this way, using 3D printing technology and artificial intelligence, you can easily make the necessary robot at home! It goes without saying that this is a groundbreaking step in robotics. And thanks to open-source, it seems that many more wonderful things will be found in the near future if many people work on these things together.
The use of GPT-40 as artificial intelligence in robotics may be a bit ‘unusual’ or unconventional, but it is now being widely used and appreciated. As a result, the limitations of programming robots in advance to do certain tasks have been largely removed.Science fiction is becoming a reality day by day, and it is also entering our homes. We are moving towards an incredible future. A future that was once only seen on TV screens.