What’s Your Problem? Building a Robot People Actually Want

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Aaron Edsinger left his job as director of robotics at Google to start a company called Hello Robot. Aaron’s problem is this: How do you build an affordable robot that people can use to solve real problems at home? The result is a robot that looks nothing like a person. In fact, it’s closer to a Roomba with an arm.

In this episode, Aaron explains:

  •  Why home robots have barely progressed since the Roomba
  • Why simpler robots can be more useful than complex humanoids
  •  Why the physical world is so much harder for AI than language
  • How robot safety is fundamentally a physics problem

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The Host

Jacob Goldstein

Jacob Goldstein spent more than a decade as co-host of the Planet Money podcast. He's also the author of the book Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing, which the New…