Every passing day brings us closer to the virtual reality that Facebook serves us as a metaverse.
The bad news is that this is a virtual world where a monopoly company is starting to emerge.
The company continues to grow according to the vision of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg , and it appears to include a “robot skin.”
In a post on Monday , the artificial intelligence division of Meta — the company formerly known as Facebook — announced that it is collaborating with Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania to develop a lightweight, touch-sensor-like robotic “skin” that will help researchers develop the tactile sense of artificial intelligence in the construction of the metaverse.
"When you wear a Meta device, you will want some tactile ones to be provided so that users can feel more conscious," Meta researcher Abhinav Gupta told CNBC in an interview.
Also known as ReSkin, the new open source "skin" will power artificial intelligence researchers who want to "exploit the richness of the sense of touch the way humans do" to incorporate touch into their models.
According to Meta, the skin will use machine learning and magnetic detection to automatically calibrate its own sensor. We are talking about a "skin" that will be able to share data between systems, effectively solving the problem of training a new skin every time we want to use it in a new system.
According to Meta, ReSkin will transmit data magnetically rather than electronically, using data from multiple sensors and self-supervised learning models so that the sensors can be calibrated independently.
"Strong tactile sensation is a major barrier to robotics," said Lerrel Pinto, an assistant professor of computer science at NYU. "Current sensors are either too expensive, offer poor resolution or are too cumbersome for custom robots.
"ReSkin has the ability to overcome many of these problems."
ReSkin, which will be about 2-3 mm thick, can be used for more than 50.000 interactions. An added bonus is its relatively inexpensive production (about $ 6 for 100 units).
ReSkin's touch features make it particularly capable of completing tasks that would require a human hand, such as "using the key to unlock a door or grab delicate objects such as grapes or blackberries".
I do not know how you hear all of the above, but I am personally very concerned about the fact that Zuckerberg's skin will be based on "self-supervised learning models", while the first learning data will come from a company like Facebook.
George is still wondering what he is doing here….
