“Everyday Robots” in the wild

The Everyday Robots project has emerged from Google X, the secretive moonshot technology division of Alphabet. It is always exciting to see what makes it out of the shroud of secrecy. After all, most projects fail, as they should. If that weren’t the case, it would mean the team wasn’t actually working towards moonshots after all. 

Alphabet closed out last year by deploying more than 100 autonomous robots in its offices, challenged with a variety of tasks. What makes them interesting is that they’re very full-featured in terms of technology. They aren’t designed to do just one thing well like an iRobot vacuum. 

These robots are all wheeled with multi-jointed arms and dexterous grippers. They have multiple cameras for computer vision and even spinning LIDAR (laser imaging, detection, and ranging) for depth and imaging. And these capabilities, infused with artificial intelligence, enable each and every robot to perform a variety of tasks.  

For example, the company has the robots sorting through waste, picking out recyclables and materials for compost. They can also wipe down tables or pick up and deliver objects. But the key is that these robots are capable of learning tasks. They don’t require hard programming just to perform an individual task. They are at the stage where they can learn, iterate, improve, and eventually master tasks.

Where is this going? I believe they called them Everyday Robots for a reason. Today, the Google Assistant is something that we access through a smart home speaker or screen terminal on a counter.  

My bet would be that Google’s strategy will be for these robots to embody the future Google Assistant. And if Google/Alphabet has its way, it will want at least one in every home, surveilling, collecting data, increasing advertising revenues… And, ultimately, influencing the way we think.