That inventory-checking robot may be the most useful AI startup product I've seen. It's a valuable and large problem, challenging yet tractable with today's technology.<p>Curious if anyone knows other valuable and unique markets being addressed by new startups.
For many readers of HN, this article is obviously true. But so obvious that you might wonder if it's newsworthy, a rehashing of what we hear so often:<p>* AI will take jobs<p>> a prototype inventory checker developed by Bossa Nova Robotics silently glided through the aisles using computer vision to automatically perform a task that humans have done manually for centuries.<p>* VCs move in packs<p>> “We saw a slow trickle in investments in robotics, and suddenly, boom — there seem to be a dozen companies ..."<p>* The rush for talent<p>> “The number of people trying to get the students to drop out of the class halfway through because now they know a little bit of this stuff is crazy.”<p>* The strawman of superintelligence<p>> For some technologists, today’s technical advances are laying the groundwork for truly brilliant machines that will soon have human-level intelligence.<p>* The evocation of AI winter, just to be safe<p>> ...so the commercial enthusiasm ended in disappointment, leading to a period now referred to as the “A.I. Winter.”<p>Add a potted history of Silicon Valley as a "place that reinvents itself" and the Canadian mafia's origin story about deep learning, and you have a recipe for almost any news article about AI, ever.<p>Not much new here.
Are drones and robots really about AI or are they more about processors that can handle intensive image processing and control systems on a cheap, low-power silicon die?<p>Don't get me wrong, I think robotics is gonna be yuuuuuge, but I see AI as more of a software play in the near term (consumer/biz, not embedded.)<p>Oh, and robots don't have a minimum wage. Something to think about as we push up labor costs at the low end (unnecessarily IMO.) Is it a coincidence that I see touch-screens in SF McDonalds the year following the min-wage increase? The technology has been there for a long time.
I there is more success than 1980s A.I. A whole lot hoopla then. Fear Japan would whomp us. And then never went anywhere. In the 1980s it was LISP machines, expert systems, and logical programming languages. Now it is deep learning and self driving cars.
The inventory robot reminds me of an idea I had 11 years ago to use roomba tech + rfid readers to track inventory in stores like walmart. Curious to see how their use of computer vision can account for things like depth of shelves etc.