The new Stanford Robotics Center just opened its doors for the first time. It will be making robots that will be used in medicine, the arts, ocean and space research, and even your own home.
The head of the Stanford Robotics Center is Oussama Khatib. He said he fell in love with robots the first time he learned about it.
As Khatib pointed to the underwater robot OceanOneK, he said, “We built this machine that can dive very deep and talk to human divers at the same time.” This is the only humanoid dive robot of its kind in the world.
Khatib said that the robotics center was made so that top researchers from many fields could work together to use robots to solve problems.
The head of the Stanford Robotics Center, Steve Cousins, said, “In the medical bay, we try to study how robots can help with medicine, and we do some interesting things.”
“Can we use tiny robots instead of putting a catheter through your whole body?” Could the robot swim its way through instead? This seems a bit fucked up. “People remember movies we watched as kids.”
Also, scientists are working on ways to bring robots into our homes.
Qi Wu, a master’s student in computer science at Stanford, said, “I hope it can do things like get a package for me or do my laundry.” “Just like, everything I do not want to do, it can do.”
“So if we walk over here, these robots can figure out where we are and follow us,” Catie Cuan, a postdoctoral scholar in computer science at Stanford, explained during a demonstration.
“You can see how they are orienting themselves toward us and coming over here to follow us wherever we are.” “We can walk over here and make signs.
For example, if we raise our right arm, they will clap for us.” They will spin and turn in place if we lift our left arm. As we skate, we get this beautiful motion.”
“There is always this fear of robotics that they will take over the world, and let me tell you, I do not fear robots,” Khatib said. “I worry about robots.”
They are not strong. If you unplug the robot, it is gone. People are scared of AI now. AI is a useful tool, but there are a lot of worries, which are valid worries.
Khatib said that their idea is always to combine the person and the machine as they come up with new ways to make robots that have never been made before.
“It is like, you do, you develop, you build, and you deploy, and it works,” Khatib said. “It is just unbelievable!”
He says that his love for robots is “contagious.” He said that seeing his students learn new things and get excited about robots makes him want to do their research even more.