The subsidiary X (X), which was also called Google X under the alphabet, is taking on an ambitious new challenge. It is not a product development, but a robot that separates office waste.
Unlike other Alphabet subsidiaries, X doesn’t tell you what it’s doing and how far it’s going. It is announced that the Everyday Robot Project, which X has been on for the past few years, has reached a certain level. Project leader Hans Peter Brondmo says the robots are now in practical use, but they can only be used for professional purposes in special locations by trained operators. Compared to computers in the 1950s and 1960s, it is said that in order to open the age of robots, like the computer age, a world where ordinary people can live with robots in their daily lives.
Of course, this is more ordinary than you might think, but it is also a complex challenge. Because robots must have everything that people take for granted on a daily basis. It is difficult for robots to predict daily things that we take for granted in our daily life, such as when people wander around, trash cans in corners disappear the next day, furniture moves back and forth, and weather conditions change.
This robot project is to create a robot that real humans feel useful in their daily lives. The key is teaching, not the number of programs. It is being researched with Google’s AI team and presented a robot that separates garbage from offices that have reached a certain stage.
It can learn using various techniques, such as robot simulation and reinforcement learning, and actually reduce the amount of waste from 20% to less than 5%. If you put the wrong trash in the trash, the entire contents of the trash can not be recycled and will be landfilled.
In addition to reducing the amount of recyclable waste from large offices to landfill, it may be important that this achievement proves that X’s ultimate goal of making robots everyday for almost everyone is achievable. At least, it makes sense to take a step in this direction. Related information can be found here .