r/acc: 2024 is the year of small, open robotics acceleration

Abstract

In this article, I will spell out a vision for robotics in 2024. My intention is to kick off a conversation that helps catalyze the conversation around robotics and why, as a field, things are set to change in major ways.

Previously I have built robotics ecosystems at Intel, Arm and NVIDIA.

TL;DR

• On-Device LLMs and AI advancements make pervasive robotics possible
• Low-Cost robotics using off-the-shelf components and 3D printing are now far more viable than ever before
• The biggest barrier to significant advancements in robotics innovation is not mechanical design, as these problems have been solved hundreds of times over, it is compelling AI
• Open Source AI is exploding and will continue to enable rapid advancements in what is possible in low-cost robots
• A new robotics innovation community is required, probably drawing substantially from the e/acc movement (perhaps an r/acc is needed)
• AI companions must be developed which are fully open source and transparent, designed to protect humans from emotional and information manipulation, I propose an “open companion” project or set of projects and “companion standards” which act as a sort of Asimov Laws for this technology
• Embodied companions are likely to be the #1 use case for low-cost robotics, to catalyze a global revolution in low-cost, believable humanoids, walkers, crawlers and runners
• Passive Dynamics is a technology which has been forgotten, I believe the robotics ecosystem must adopt the principals of passive dynamics to build realistic, low cost, low energy robots which rely on intelligence instead of industrial power and heavy servos
• Tendon Driven robotics is a technology which I believe must be advanced, along with other methods and designs such as spherical ball-and-socket joints which are mass market

Robots should be cheap, widespread, safe, intelligent, useful, affordable, dynamic, elegant and use few materials. I believe that the ratio of low-cost robots will be 10:1 for every industrial robot, but a movement, community, education, industry and evangelism must be converged to bring it to life.

Why 2024 is the “Year of Small Robots”

Fortunately, I see now that things have changed and we are at a point where significant advancements are possible. Open source AI is the tipping point, and I want more from the OSS community to join and work on robotics innovations.

Here are a few reasons that I believe robotics is set to go parabolic:

• 1: Believable desktop humanoids have existed for years but no one has tried to commercialize them (link )
• 2: Working mechanicals and CAD files for a robotic toy mech, dinosaur and humanoid walkers exist and are freely available (link )
• 3: A viable pathway is to pursue the development of branded and licensed toys (link )
• 4: LLMs have arrived that can run on devices as small as a smart watch (link )
• 5: Early small robots are beginning to reach the market (link )
• 6: Intelligent Companions are beginning to reach the market and will likely soon drive demand for "embodied intelligence" (link )

Putting the pieces together, Blockers and Unsolved Problems

If small robots have a “breakout,” I believe the following will be required:

• An open source reference design or reference designs which can act as a general purpose robot “brain” platform similar to how Dronecode has created a shared platform for the drone market
• An open source AI companion or intelligent companion framework must exist that can be installed into robots, complete with tooling using something like ComfyUI capable of designing robot personalities
• Available low-cost robotic humanoid, raptor, walker, runner and other form factors which can be purchased, ordered or customized across a range of use cases
• Viable commercial uses such as toys, buy in from toy-makers and other use cases, branded merchandise. This may require the convergence of a hybrid robotics ecosystem spanning different industries

Passive Dynamics

I believe that passive dynamics and tendon driven robotics are underexplored topics which will yield significant break throughs for tiny low cost robots.

Industrial robots and commercial grade robots will always have a role, but I believe that low-cost robots that use clever AI, genetic algorithms, LLMs and improved designs will become the majority of robots in the same way that low-cost consumer drones are proving a disruptive force, even on the battlefield in Ukraine.

In this video, I go through some of my thinking:

Robotic brains

EZ-Robot is a company which has solved this years in advance by offering a combination of robotics brains and components which can be assembled into a viable robot. The “brain” unit I believe is a great starting point. I believe having open source brains like this will be a helpful catalyst.

Text-To-Robot // Robots On Demand

I believe that robots can be designed and ordered on demand, perhaps via a volunteer network of robot builders and manufactured anywhere including the United States using current technology. We might even see things like “text-to-robot.”

Robot personality studio

I believe that ComfyUI can form the basis for a tool to generate robots and robotic personalities.

Generative Robotics // Generative Electronics

I believe that advancements in Generative AI will enable designers to generate robots in real-time on the fly .

Missing Pieces

I believe an industry and community group or coalition should be organized around improving and harmonizing all of the above pieces into an r/acc movement which seeks to accelerate adoption of embodied intelligence which is open source, in an open way The biggest missing piece will be market demand. People need to actually want to build these robots and use them, the robots have to have a real utility.

Next Steps

Here are the steps I believe that will need to occur:

• Make an effort to document all the pieces and how they will fit together in vision documents such as this
• Systematically share these documents and begin building a mailing list or community or communities, start the conversation
• Define the blockers, technical gaps and seek industry and community involvement to fill these gaps, shape open source technologies to fill these gaps
• Pursue commercialization via industry, most likely toy makers will be the #1 initial target market
• Once toys and hobby project builders are satisfied, I believe we will see “Scale ups” of these projects which can address commercial concerns
• Organize and have regular conversations and provide thought leadership to converge this conversation and build the small robots industry

Conclusion

This is article is meant to capture the vision and all the key pieces and try to summarize the main direction, theory and motivation. I may revisit in the future and update it as the thinking evolves.

If this interests you feel free to ping me.