Re:Gemini Robotics brings AI into the physical world
by refulgentis on Wednesday March 12, 2025 @04:06PM
(#43347157)
Ah, that's a really good point, thank you - makes me think of how little progress there's been in that domain, whether robots perceiving or tricking our perception.
For the inverse of the robot problem: younger me, spoiled by youth and thinking multitouch was the beginning of a drumbeat of steady revolution, distinctly thought we were a year or two out from having haptics that could "fake" the sensation of feeling a material.
I swear there was stuff to back this up...but I was probably just on a diet of unquestioning, and projecting, Apple blogs when the taptic engine was released, and they probably shared one-off research videos.
Those are realistically the 'natural' developments in the domain knowledge of Robotics/Computer Science.
However, what GP (I think) is raising is the blind spot that robotics currently has on proprioception and tactile sensing at the end-effector as well as a along the kinematic chain.
As in you can accomplish this with just kinematic position and force feedback and Visual servoing. But if you think of any dexterous primate they will handle an object and perceive texture, compliance, brittleness etc in a much richer way then any state-of-the art robotic end-effector.
Unless you devote significant research to creating miniaturized sensors that give a robot an approximation of the information rich sources in human skin, connective tissue, muscle, joints (tactil sensors, tensile sensor, vibration sensors, Force sensors) that blind spot remains.