Why did Turing Award winner Hinton join the AI robotics company founded by the former CEO of the lidar giant?

Original source: Alpha Commune

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Recently, Turing Award winner Geoffrey Hinton, who left Google in May, announced that he has joined AI robotics company Vayu Robotics as a member of its advisory board.

Vayu Robotics just raised $12.7 million in seed funding led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Lockheed Martin's venture capital arm, ReMY Investors and others.

Vayu's areas of focus include last-mile delivery, factory automation and automotive. It has its own AI base model and innovative sensors.

Anand Gopalan, CEO and co-founder of Vayu Robotics, was the CEO of Velodyne Lidar (a NASDAQ-listed lidar company) before starting the business, and Vayu's other two co-founders are Nitish Srivastava (Hinton's PhD student) and Mahesh Krishnamurthi (who worked at Lyft and Apple).

Optimistic about the application of AI in robots, Hinton joins his disciple's startup

Since Geoffrey Hinton left Google Brain, where he left for 10 years, in May, people have been wondering what he's going to do next. He left Google at the time out of fear of current AI risks, said he regretted his life's work, and in an interview with "60 Minutes" he also expressed deep concern about the prospect that "AI may take over humanity in the future."

Geoffrey Hinton, a Turing Award winner and also known as the "Godfather of AI," came up with the groundbreaking "backpropagation" algorithm in the field of artificial intelligence, and his student Ilya Sutskever, co-founder and chief scientist of OpenAI, led the current wave of generative AI revolution.

Geoffrey Hinton's concerns focus on the ethics of AI. The reason for his joining Vayu Robotics is that he sees the great potential of AI in the field of robotics and that there are fewer questions about AI ethics in this application direction. And, of course, his close relationship with Nitish Srivastava, CTO and co-founder of Vayu Robotics.

Hinton said: "Since leaving Google, I have received many offers to join the advisory board of startups, but all of them have declined. I decided to join the advisory board of Vayu Robotics because I saw great potential in their use of AI in robotics, an approach that combines a co-engineering approach of machine learning and vision sensors. I look forward to working with Nitish Srivastava again and guiding the growth of the Vayu team." I believe Vayu's technology will provide safe, environmentally friendly solutions with far fewer ethical issues than many other AI applications. ”

Nitish Srivastava, CTO and co-founder of Vayu Robotics, has master's and doctoral supervisors at the University of Toronto, both Hinton. While in school, Srivastava developed Dropout, a technique to prevent overfitting that makes AI models more generalized, more energy-efficient, and simpler.

Nitish Srivastava responded to Hinton: "I am eager to work with Dr. Hinton again, not only from first-hand learning from the greatest thinker in machine learning, but also inspired by his strong ethical drive that still guides my decisions today." ”

Anand Gopalan, CEO of Vayu Robotics, also welcomed Hinton: "At Vayu, we are not only committed to building the next generation of robotics in novel ways, but also to create a company that values human creativity and human relationships. Dr. Hinton is the perfect guide on this path. ”

Vayu's CEO, Anand Gopalan, was previously the CEO of Velodyne Lidar, a public lidar company, and earlier the company's chief technology officer, and he is also a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford, holds a number of patents in the field of optics and electronics, and has a deep understanding of technology and management.

Another co-founder, Mahesh Krishnamurthi, has worked at Lyft and Apple and has a deep experience in sensors.

Commenting on the new financing, Anand Gopalan said: "Vayu is poised to disrupt the market by creating the lowest cost robot with the best operating economy. We have built a team of highly skilled engineers who have expertise in both hardware and software. With this latest round of investment, our team is ready to bring Vayu's innovative technology to market through our first customers. ”

Kanu Gulati, Partner at Khosla Ventures, shared his investment thoughts on Vayu Robotics: "At Khosla Ventures, we bet early on on bold ideas that could have a profound impact on society. We see Vayu as one of the first world-class teams to use advanced sensing technology to enable machines to navigate like never before, taking robotics to the next level. ”

RaaS (Robot as a Service) supported by large models and new sensors

Based on the concept of vayu in Robotics, which means the wisdom of all movements and energy flows in the universe, Vayu's main application areas point to the transportation industry. Vayu said the rise of new AI technologies enables robots to perform more versatile tasks in innovative ways, at lower costs, more environmentally sustainable and scalable.

Stronger than traditional cameras, cheaper than lidar

Vayu's technology is based on three pillars: new sensors, scalable machine learning technology, and targeted product design. Its products are mainly Vayu Drive (basic AI model optimized for autonomous movement), Vayu Sense (low-cost, cost-effective sensors), and Vayu One (Robot-as-a-Service Delivery System, RaaS).

The Vayu Drive base model makes the Vayu One robot more intelligent, it is computationally efficient, scalable, and adaptable to various usage scenarios. Vayu Drive uses modern machine learning methods such as self-supervised learning, generative pre-training, and offline reinforcement learning development.

Vayu Sense sensors are one of the core of Vayu's technology, and although the company's founder, Anand Gopalan, is a lidar expert, Vayu does not use lidar and high-definition maps, but relies only on cameras and special algorithms to achieve self-driving-like technology. Removing the sensor and using only the camera-based vision scheme to perceive is already a mainstream solution.

Compared to the solution with lidar, Vayu Sense is much lower cost while ensuring results. Compared to traditional camera solutions, Vayu Sense works better, it can provide high-precision 3D perception without lighting, and with the blessing of Vayu Drive, it can be used in harsh or harsh environments with little actual data.

The Vayu One is currently a robotic trolley for "last-mile delivery." Due to the small size, it can save a lot of costs, including manufacturing costs and running costs, and its braking distance is short and the safety is higher.

Vayu Robotics already has an application scenario of delivery cars, but with their technical achievements, it will be deployed in the field of factory automation, car autonomous driving and even aviation in the future, and their new financing can support their technological exploration.

Robot entrepreneurial team must not only understand technology, but also see the pain points of the industry

The core value of robots in application scenarios lies in how much value it can replace in terms of manpower. The more core the business of an enterprise, the more manpower is replaced, the greater its value and prospects for an enterprise.

Robots have become the direction of more and more AI experts, Hinton joined his disciple founded Vayu Robotics, Cohere founder Aidan Gomez believes that robots are the future of AI, OpenAI also invested in robotics company 1X.

In the past, the team of entrepreneurs in the field of robotics was led by technical experts and industry experts. But as the combination of AI technology and robots becomes closer and closer, a robot entrepreneurial team needs a deep combination of technical experts and industry experts. Technologists can see the latest technology trends, and industry experts have enough knowhow, until the customer's most painful point is, whether the customer has the pain point in the obvious place or not.

Vayu Robotics' startup team is an upgraded version of this team structure, with industry experts Anand Gopalan (former CEO of LiDAR listed companies), as well as technical experts Nitish Srivastava and Mahesh Krishnamurthi, plus Hinton as a consultant, who can see the road clearly (whether it is technical or commercial) and have enough strength to achieve their goals. There is also a big signboard in financing.

Robot entrepreneurship is also in full swing in China, and various cleaning robots, storage robots, and industrial robots emerge one after another. As mentioned earlier, the core value of robots in application scenarios lies in how large-scale manpower can be replaced. With the continuous upgrading of China's industrialization, people's requirements for quality of life, and the reduction of the supply of low-end manufacturing workers (young people are no longer entering the factory), AI+ robot entrepreneurship will have broad prospects in China in the future.