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This is how ALOHA's "teleoperation" system works - a fancy word for "remote control". Training robots will be more and more like playing games in the physical world. A human operates a "joystick++" to perform tasks and collect data, or intervene if there's any safety concern. There's actually a... learning curve to master the controller, much like practicing gaming skills. Teleoperation can be done in many different ways. ALOHA is an impressive custom-built system with very low cost. Here're a few alternatives: (1) Motion Capture (MoCap): apply the MoCap systems used for Hollywood movies to capture the fine-grained motions of hand joints. There would be no "embodiment gap" if the robot hand has 5 fingers. For instance, a demonstrator can wear a CyberGlove ( and manipulate the objects. CyberGlove will capture the motion signals & haptic feedback in real-time, which can be re-targeted onto the humanoid. (2) Wearing gloves & markers can be clumsy. An alternative way to do MoCap is through computer vision. DexPilot from NVIDIA enables marker-less and glove-free data collection. The human operator simply uses their bare hands to perform the tasks. 4 Intel RealSense depth cameras and 2 NVIDIA Titan XP GPUs (yeah, 2019 work) translate the pixels to precise motion signals for robot learning. (3) VR Headset: turn the training room into a VR game and "role play" the robot. This has the advantage of scalable remote data collection - annotators from around the world can contribute without coming onsite. VR demonstration technique appeared in research projects like the iGibson home robot simulator, an initiative that I participated in at Stanford: Behind-the-scene video by Litian Liangshow more

Jim Fan

425,723 subscribers

124,588 views • 2 years ago •via X (Twitter)

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9 Comments

Bindu Reddy2 years ago

The good thing about Aloha is that it is very low-cost and versatile. Recording these movements and creating a learning algorithm to mimic the movements isn't all that difficult. IMO, these guys are approaching the problem correctly.

Indira Negi2 years ago

Maybe we will outsource mundane physical tasks via teleoperation for some time before we get fully autonomous robots

eab2 years ago

This is just the beginning. They are going to also be able to use the servomechnical data the human is training to do more generalized tasks (ie, human->robot->simulation->world). It looks wonky but this is the way to go. I said before that trade jobs are not safe from AI.

Ilya Sutskever's hairline2 years ago

Haha. Stunning how training process is much more simple than I thought. I thought it learns from human using it's meat hands to do things. Turns out, it's meat hands driving metal hands. Still very cool!

Samuel Ekpe2 years ago

What are we doing here? Are we doing AI or Human Augmented Intelligence?

Terminal Fence Sitter2 years ago

having a ghost moment with your robot

Better Quests2 years ago

What fo you think the future will look like? More of controlled-assist robots? Or more fully autonomous ones?

CyberJoe2 years ago

Cool like what huge android robot control seen on Matrix or Gundam Wing

Alejandro Tejada C.2 years ago

Could this help in the decommission process of Fukushima Reactors? 🤔

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165,246 views • 1 year ago

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Igor Kulakov

37,266 views • 1 year ago

Teaching robots to perform dexterous manipulation tasks currently requires teleoperation, which limits demonstration quality, speed, and scalability. Instead, why not use human videos? The problem is that a human hand isn’t a robot hand, so data must be retargeted using simulation to resolve issues like collisions and interpenetration when controlling the hand. In VideoManip, Hongyi Chen and co-authors built a system to solve this problem, taking in RGB videos of humans performing manipulation tasks and using them to create accurate simulations with which to learn robot policies. Watch episode #73 of RoboPapers, hosted by Michael Cho - Rbt/Acc and Chris Paxton, now to learn more!

Teaching robots to perform dexterous manipulation tasks currently requires teleoperation, which limits demonstration quality, speed, and scalability. Instead, why not use human videos? The problem is that a human hand isn’t a robot hand, so data must be retargeted using simulation to resolve issues like collisions and interpenetration when controlling the hand. In VideoManip, Hongyi Chen and co-authors built a system to solve this problem, taking in RGB videos of humans performing manipulation tasks and using them to create accurate simulations with which to learn robot policies. Watch episode #73 of RoboPapers, hosted by Michael Cho - Rbt/Acc and Chris Paxton, now to learn more!

RoboPapers

27,344 views • 4 months ago

We might be solving the wrong problem in robotics. That’s what this makes clear. UMI → Universal Manipulation Interface A simple $400 gripper that lets you teach robots by demonstration. You hold it like a tool. Show the task. The robot learns. No teleoperation. No expensive hardware. No robot-specific data. Stanford open-sourced everything → hardware, code, datasets. What stands out to me is the bottleneck. Not algorithms. Data. Teleoperation → ~35 demos/hour UMI → ~111 demos/hour And the data transfers across robots → UR5, Franka, others. The design is surprisingly practical: → GoPro fisheye lens (155° FOV) + mirrors for depth → SLAM + IMU for precise 6DoF tracking → latency matching for dynamic tasks → diffusion policies for multimodal actions Then it scales. Cheng Chi takes this further with Sunday Robotics (with Tony Zhao). A $200 glove → deployed in 500+ homes → ~10 million real-world interactions. Not lab data. Real human behavior. Their robot learns dishes, laundry, espresso → with zero robot-specific data. This is where the shift becomes obvious. From training robots in controlled environments → to learning directly from humans at scale So here’s the real question: Will robotics be unlocked by better models… or by unlocking data? #ArtificialIntelligence #Robotics #AI #Innovation #FutureOfWork

We might be solving the wrong problem in robotics. That’s what this makes clear. UMI → Universal Manipulation Interface A simple $400 gripper that lets you teach robots by demonstration. You hold it like a tool. Show the task. The robot learns. No teleoperation. No expensive hardware. No robot-specific data. Stanford open-sourced everything → hardware, code, datasets. What stands out to me is the bottleneck. Not algorithms. Data. Teleoperation → ~35 demos/hour UMI → ~111 demos/hour And the data transfers across robots → UR5, Franka, others. The design is surprisingly practical: → GoPro fisheye lens (155° FOV) + mirrors for depth → SLAM + IMU for precise 6DoF tracking → latency matching for dynamic tasks → diffusion policies for multimodal actions Then it scales. Cheng Chi takes this further with Sunday Robotics (with Tony Zhao). A $200 glove → deployed in 500+ homes → ~10 million real-world interactions. Not lab data. Real human behavior. Their robot learns dishes, laundry, espresso → with zero robot-specific data. This is where the shift becomes obvious. From training robots in controlled environments → to learning directly from humans at scale So here’s the real question: Will robotics be unlocked by better models… or by unlocking data? #ArtificialIntelligence #Robotics #AI #Innovation #FutureOfWork

Pascal Bornet

186,551 views • 4 months ago

A Few Thoughts on Robotics The criticism that robotics can only be used in a rather one-sided way is, at the same time, the solution to the problem. What do I mean by that? Since the Industrial Revolution, humanity has increasingly made production methods more efficient. Fordism introduced assembly line work, but this comes at the expense of monotonous, repetitive tasks. On the one hand, immense wealth has been created; on the other hand, countless people suffer from repetitive tasks, which are a direct consequence of that industrial revolution and the division of labor- in other words, assembly line work. The debate about whether AI and robotics could impact the labor market is answered in different ways. I have a clear opinion on this: Up to now, technology has merely been an augmentation, an improvement of human labor to make it more effective. Robotics and AI, however, represent a qualitative break with this situation. For the first time in human history, it won't be humans who become more efficient, but rather replaceable, insofar as human augmentation becomes *less* efficient than replacing human labor with robotics. In just a few years, a human using technology will simply be less efficient than a robot that doesn't know an eight-hour day, weekends, or holidays, but can perform monotonous tasks 24/7 on an assembly line without breaking down due to physical ailments or needing medical attention. Wear and tear simply means replacing specific parts of the robot. To return to the initial question: production doesn't require general-purpose robots capable of performing a wide variety of tasks, but rather specialized robots that excel at the specific tasks for which they are needed. Figure02 vividly illustrates why this is only now possible: even the simplest assembly line work still requires delicate manual dexterity because the production line is designed for human hands. This breakthrough has now arrived, but AGI (Automated Generating Intelligence) isn't necessary for robots to be used in production processes. It's sufficient that they can perform monotonous tasks. And that's why I believe 2026 will be the year of the robots. (Clip: Figure02 in production chain at BMW Car-production)

A Few Thoughts on Robotics The criticism that robotics can only be used in a rather one-sided way is, at the same time, the solution to the problem. What do I mean by that? Since the Industrial Revolution, humanity has increasingly made production methods more efficient. Fordism introduced assembly line work, but this comes at the expense of monotonous, repetitive tasks. On the one hand, immense wealth has been created; on the other hand, countless people suffer from repetitive tasks, which are a direct consequence of that industrial revolution and the division of labor- in other words, assembly line work. The debate about whether AI and robotics could impact the labor market is answered in different ways. I have a clear opinion on this: Up to now, technology has merely been an augmentation, an improvement of human labor to make it more effective. Robotics and AI, however, represent a qualitative break with this situation. For the first time in human history, it won't be humans who become more efficient, but rather replaceable, insofar as human augmentation becomes less efficient than replacing human labor with robotics. In just a few years, a human using technology will simply be less efficient than a robot that doesn't know an eight-hour day, weekends, or holidays, but can perform monotonous tasks 24/7 on an assembly line without breaking down due to physical ailments or needing medical attention. Wear and tear simply means replacing specific parts of the robot. To return to the initial question: production doesn't require general-purpose robots capable of performing a wide variety of tasks, but rather specialized robots that excel at the specific tasks for which they are needed. Figure02 vividly illustrates why this is only now possible: even the simplest assembly line work still requires delicate manual dexterity because the production line is designed for human hands. This breakthrough has now arrived, but AGI (Automated Generating Intelligence) isn't necessary for robots to be used in production processes. It's sufficient that they can perform monotonous tasks. And that's why I believe 2026 will be the year of the robots. (Clip: Figure02 in production chain at BMW Car-production)

Chubby♨️

15,228 views • 8 months ago

In order for robots to be deployed in the real world, performing tasks of real value, they must be reliable. Unfortunately, even more, most robotic demos work maybe 70-80% of the time at best. The way to get better reliability is to do real-world reinforcement learning: having the robot teach itself how to perform the task up to a high level of success. The key to doing this is to start with a core of expert human data, use that to train a policy then iteratively improve it, until finally finishing with on-policy reinforcement learning. Kun Lei talks through a unified framework for imitation and reinforcement learning based on PPO, which enables this improvement process. In this episode, Kun Lei explains the theory behind his reinforcement learning method and how it allowed his robot to run in a shopping mall juicing oranges for seven hours at a time, among experiments on a wide variety of tasks and embodiments. Watch episode 58 of RoboPapers now, hosted by Michael Cho - Rbt/Acc and Chris Paxton!

In order for robots to be deployed in the real world, performing tasks of real value, they must be reliable. Unfortunately, even more, most robotic demos work maybe 70-80% of the time at best. The way to get better reliability is to do real-world reinforcement learning: having the robot teach itself how to perform the task up to a high level of success. The key to doing this is to start with a core of expert human data, use that to train a policy then iteratively improve it, until finally finishing with on-policy reinforcement learning. Kun Lei talks through a unified framework for imitation and reinforcement learning based on PPO, which enables this improvement process. In this episode, Kun Lei explains the theory behind his reinforcement learning method and how it allowed his robot to run in a shopping mall juicing oranges for seven hours at a time, among experiments on a wide variety of tasks and embodiments. Watch episode 58 of RoboPapers now, hosted by Michael Cho - Rbt/Acc and Chris Paxton!

RoboPapers

18,813 views • 7 months ago

Quadrupeds are fast. Agile. Great at locomotion. But can they manipulate? A new approach from Carnegie Mellon University, Google DeepMind, and Bosch is teaching quadrupedal robots to do more than walk, they’re learning to interact. It’s called Human2LocoMan: a system that uses human data to pretrain robot policies before finetuning on real hardware. The result? A four-legged robot that can walk, carry, organize, scoop, and sort with both single and dual-arm control. By pretraining on human motion, they cut the amount of robot data in half—while improving success rates by over 80% in unfamiliar environments. Their Modularized Cross-Embodiment Transformer (MXT) learns from both human and robot demonstrations, then generalizes those skills to physical tasks—no hardcoded behaviors required. It’s locomotion and manipulation. A quadruped that can walk and clean up after itself?

Quadrupeds are fast. Agile. Great at locomotion. But can they manipulate? A new approach from Carnegie Mellon University, Google DeepMind, and Bosch is teaching quadrupedal robots to do more than walk, they’re learning to interact. It’s called Human2LocoMan: a system that uses human data to pretrain robot policies before finetuning on real hardware. The result? A four-legged robot that can walk, carry, organize, scoop, and sort with both single and dual-arm control. By pretraining on human motion, they cut the amount of robot data in half—while improving success rates by over 80% in unfamiliar environments. Their Modularized Cross-Embodiment Transformer (MXT) learns from both human and robot demonstrations, then generalizes those skills to physical tasks—no hardcoded behaviors required. It’s locomotion and manipulation. A quadruped that can walk and clean up after itself?

Lukas Ziegler

61,610 views • 1 year ago

Brain-controlled exoskeletons to train humanoid robots! 🧠 Fourier just presented human tele-operators using brain control interfaces and exoskeletal arms to train humanoid robots on home tasks. The brain control interface is the interesting part. Instead of using a controller or joystick to teleoperate, the operator's movements and intentions are captured more naturally through the exoskeleton and BCI. This means the demonstrations are more fluid, more human-like, and better suited for training robots to perform delicate home tasks. Multiple tele-operators are simultaneously generating training data across multiple robots. This is how you build the dataset needed for eventual full autonomy, without waiting years for it to arrive. This might be the bridge between "robots that work in controlled environments" and "robots that work in homes." Not full autonomy right away, but trusted human intelligence operating through a robot body, getting better with every task completed. ~~ ♻️ Join the weekly robotics newsletter, and never miss any news →

Brain-controlled exoskeletons to train humanoid robots! 🧠 Fourier just presented human tele-operators using brain control interfaces and exoskeletal arms to train humanoid robots on home tasks. The brain control interface is the interesting part. Instead of using a controller or joystick to teleoperate, the operator's movements and intentions are captured more naturally through the exoskeleton and BCI. This means the demonstrations are more fluid, more human-like, and better suited for training robots to perform delicate home tasks. Multiple tele-operators are simultaneously generating training data across multiple robots. This is how you build the dataset needed for eventual full autonomy, without waiting years for it to arrive. This might be the bridge between "robots that work in controlled environments" and "robots that work in homes." Not full autonomy right away, but trusted human intelligence operating through a robot body, getting better with every task completed. ~~ ♻️ Join the weekly robotics newsletter, and never miss any news →

Lukas Ziegler

20,898 views • 6 months ago