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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   13489 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025

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There has been a lot of hype news in robotics + AI lately, as the AI updates just continue to come at a blinding pace. From Tesla/XAI we have the Optimus robot, which I can't tell if this is a major breakthrough or just another marketing splash driven by Elon.

On the other side of the fence, you have Nvidia releasing an open foundational model for robotics and partnering with Disney of all companies to make a droid robot.

You also have Google's I/O, which I haven't had the energy to look into.

With the speed of AI updates and the wars of hype, it's always hard to tell who is actually advancing the frontier. But it does seem that in particular robotics are advancing quite rapidly compared to even a couple of years ago. Personally I think that while automating white collar work is useful and such, AI entering into robotics will be the real game changer. If we can begin to massively automate building things like housing, roads, and mass manufactured goods, all of the sudden we get into an explosive growth curve.

Of course, this is where AGI doomer fears do become more salient, so that's something to watch out for.

Either way, another day, another AI discourse. What do you think of this current crop of news?

On the other side of the fence, you have Nvidia releasing an open foundational model for robotics and partnering with Disney of all companies to make a droid robot.

It's not that weird that they're partnering with Disney. When Walt pushed the company to develop animatronics in the 60s their work was groundbreaking. Making the animatronic Lincoln for the world's fair was extremely difficult. They kept running into new engineering problems and having to invent their way out of them. Since then they've sunk huge amounts of money and talent into improving animatronics further. Have you seen some of the most recent Disney animatronics? They're incredibly lifelike, and other companies just can't manage to imitate their quality.

So I figure Disney has a lot of experience, technology, and capital that would be useful for making lifelike robots that are aesthetically pleasing.

Agreed. Imagineering is not a joke.. Nvidia-Disney will have the most expressive robots in different varieties of your favorite characters. Tesla won't stand a chance in the marketing.

Provide me with a relevant C.S. Lewis quote please, old chap.

What might have come of it if the man had been educated - or even brought up in a decent society?

This one?

Hah, referring to Disney?

Olive beat me to it! Here's the full quote, from a letter Lewis wrote to a friend in 1939:

What did you think of Snowwhite and the VII Dwarfs? I saw it at Malvern last week. . . . Leaving out the tiresome question of whether it is suitable for children (which I don’t know and don’t care) I thought it almost inconceivably good and bad—I mean, I didn’t know one human being could be so good and bad. The worst thing of all was the vulgarity of the winking dove at the beginning, and the next worst the faces of the dwarfs. Dwarfs ought to be ugly of course, but not in that way. And the dwarfs’ jazz party was pretty bad. I suppose it never occurred to the poor boob that you could give them any other kind of music. But all the terrifying bits were good, and the animals really most moving: and the use of shadows (of dwarfs and vultures) was real genius. What might not have come of it if this man had been educated—or even brought up in a decent society?

Very awesome quote. “What would CS Lewis think of Disney” now makes me wonder what all the other greats thought of Disney

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