Why Silicon Valley's robot puppeteers are teaching humanoids how to whisk
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Fernando Flores can spend eight hours a day pouring the same cup of coffee.He is not a barista.
He’s a robot puppeteer, trying to train humanoids.He manipulates mechanical controllers to make nearby robot arms pick up a pot of coffee, pour it into a mug and put the pot back in the coffee maker.Flores checks for spills, then empties the mug back into the pot by hand and does it again — hundreds of times.
“The repetitiveness, it can cause some discomfort,” said Flores, who has the title of senior robotic pilot at San Francisco startup Encord.“It becomes second nature after a while.” Business California startups are building robots to help with fold laundry and other tedious tasks as the race to dominate artificial intelligence intensifies against countries such as China.This Sisyphus of Silicon Valley is on the front lines of a rapidly expanding industry of robot trainers, preparing to teach and operate the army of humanoid robots scheduled to march out of nearby factories in the coming year.
Encord practices, records and sells data about movement to the companies racing to bring humanoids to homes, offices and factories.If tech companies’ optimistic plans are to be believed, a swarm of American-built robots is about to hit the market.Business AI and robotics companies need data on movements in the physical world.
Some are paying gig workers to record themselves cooking dinner and doing laundry.Tesla’s Fremont factory stopped car production this year to make way for production lines for its Optimus robots, with unbelievable plans to ramp up capacity to 1 million units a year.Palo Alto-based 1X Technologies is already manufacturing its 66-pound, 5-foot-6 humanoid named Neo at its factory in Hayward.
The company received 10,000 preorders, and its first shipment is expected later this year.Figure AI’s humanoid factory in San Jose has increased its manufacturing ...