The Sequence Opinion #686: The Gemini Effect: Transforming Robotics with Multimodal Foundation Models | By The Digital Insider

Gemini Robotics showed that generalist transformer models might be the future of robotics.

Created Using GPT-4o

This is a bit of a long essay I wrote about one of the topics I have been doing a lot of research recently. The emergence of generalist, transformer models in robotics. The recent release of Gemini Robotics made me realize that robotics might be about to undergo a major shift from the AI perspective. I tried to compile some of my ideas in this essay. I hope you enjoy it!

Robotics is undergoing a paradigm shift driven by transformer-based AI models. Until recently, most robots were programmed or trained for very specialized tasks – each new function required hand-crafted algorithms or separate machine learning models. Today, a new generation of generalist AI models is emerging, enabling robots to understand language, perceive the world, and perform physical actions all within one unified system. The centerpiece of this shift is Gemini Robotics, a family of advanced transformer-based models from Google DeepMind. Gemini Robotics represents the convergence of large-scale transformer architectures (originally popularized in natural language processing) with robotic control, allowing robots to generalize across tasks and environments in ways that were previously impossible. This essay explores the evolution from narrow, specialized robotics AI to transformer-driven generalist robots, using Gemini Robotics as the guiding example. We will also examine how robots using Gemini leverage vast world knowledge to generalize their skills, and discuss the ongoing debate over large vs. small transformer models for robotics. The tone will be technical yet accessible, providing a historical background and in-depth analysis for a knowledgeable audience.

From Specialized AI to Generalist Robots

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Published on The Digital Insider at https://is.gd/mNN9Tn.