๐คThe Bulletin #63: Physical Intelligence Revolution, Scam-Protecting AI and a Busy VWV Tuesday!
Welcome back! In this week's bulletin โ Physical Intelligence making waves in the robotics/AI industry, a novel anti-scammer AI tool, and VWV events! ๐
Hi there, I hope all of you are doing well. Final stretchโthe holidays are just around the corner! ๐ฆ ๐
๐กFor this semester, keep up with our content if youโre interested in:
Demystifying & breaking into VC
Finding opportunities in the start-up world
Keeping up with VC investment news at Brown & beyond (pro tip: this is essential to breaking in and finding opportunities)
Letโs jump straight into it.
๐ฆพ Physical Intelligence: Beyond Folding Laundry
Iโve been passively following the robotics space over the past couple of years. Ever so often, I have moments where I stumble on a video capturing a robot performing an everyday task. Although the task itself seems menial, Iโm in awe of the improved capabilities and how rapidly the space has developed in recent time. ๐
I had one of these โmomentsโ days ago with Physical Intelligence, a robotics/AI company founded in 2023 and located in the heart of SF (as expected). Take a look at a video of their robot folding laundry. ๐งบ
What absolutely blows my mind is not only the fluidity of the robotโs movements but the ability to withstand the external interruption, register it, and perform an adaptive response quickly. Intrigued, I decided to look a little deeper into Physical Intelligence and their radical mission to change the robotic space.
Turns out, Physical Intelligence is not actually building any of the hardware. Instead, they are focused on building a โsingle generalist brainโ that can control any robot. ๐น๏ธ In an industry where most robots are developed to be โnarrow specialistsโโrepeating one task as part of larger assembly lineโthis unfortunately does not translate into real-world environments that are messy and capricious by nature. Physical Intelligence believes that equipping robots with a generalist AI will allow them to perform a myriad of tasks conducive to a chaotic environment.
But unlike folding laundry, this is no menial task.
ฯ0 - The First Generalist Policy
Luckily, Physical Intelligence is up for the challenge. They recently released their first model, ฯ0 (pi-zero). ฯ0 is trained on the largest robot dataset with both open source as well as diverse array of tasks performed by eight separate robots. In addition, ฯ0 utilizes a VLM (visual language model) with a twist. According to Physical Intelligence:
โVLMs effectively transfer semantic knowledge from the web, but they are trained to output only discrete language tokens. Dexterous robot manipulation requires ฯ0 to output motor commands at a high frequency, up to 50 times per second. To provide this level of dexterity, we developed a novel method to augment pre-trained VLMs with continuous action outputs via flow matching, a variant of diffusion models.โ
Using this proprietary VLM and vast dataset, ฯ0 has trained robots to engage in a variety of tasks, from assembling a box, table bussing, and of course, laundry. Take a look here to watch more videos!
Physical Intelligence + VC
Itโs no surprise that Physical Intelligence just recently raised a $400M round at a $2B valuation, with the likes of Jeff Bezos, OpenAI, Lux Capital, and Thrive Capital participating in the round. Especially as big manufacturing companies like Amazon and Tesla are keen to drive down production costs, thereโs no doubt that the success of Physical Intelligence would have massive implications for many firms, particularly those that specialize in large-scale manufacturing.
The intersection between AI and robotics has been heating up as more players enter the stage. Other AI robotics companies, like Figure or Skild AI have also raised similar amounts with similar valuations from big-time investors like Nvidia, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and SoftBank group.
๐ dAIsy: the Perfect Holiday Gift for Grandma
I find myself already indulging (just a bit) in the festive mood, and with that, Iโve been thinking about gifts. Iโm visiting my grandparents in Korea during Christmas, and Iโve been thinking about what a meaningful gift I could give them. ๐
Well, luckily for me, thereโs no need to look any further because Virgin Media O2, a large British telecommunications company, just released dAIsy, an AI granny developed to waste scammersโ time.
Although this may seem amusing, fraudulent scams is a growing and serious problem, not only in the UK, but around the world. Federal Trade Commission data estimates upwards of $10B lost to fraud schemes. Especially for those less attuned to technology, falling into scam calls is a real concern with terrible consequences.
Meet dAIsy.
Simply put, dAIsy is a combination of different AI models that work together to listen and respond to scammer calls without any contribution from the phone owner. Trained with real scam baiter content, dAIsy is equipped with blabbing about random topicsโfabricated stories about family, favorite recipes, and false personal information like bank details. Especially with scammers preying on the older demographic, the voice of an elderly grandma has been perfect in wasting up to 40 minutes of scammersโ time. Click here to watch a video on dAIsy in action. ๐ฅ
๐๏ธ VWV Events THIS Tuesday
Attention!๐จ We have back-to-back VWV events this Tuesday (11/19).
@ 12pm: Fireside chat with Khalil Fuller, serial-founder, Pear VC Head of Dorm, and a huge advocate of the entrepreneurship ecosystem at Brown! Come to learn more about his journey in VC/entrepreneurship. He will also be hosting office hours afterwards for those interested in/already developing a startup.
@7pm: Consulting + VC panel in collaboration with Brown Consulting Club. Panelists from Insight Partners and PwC Strategy will be sharing more about their day-to-day and what itโs like working in consulting/VC.
We hope to see all of you there! โ๏ธ
๐ป Weโre Updating Our Website
We love our website, and want to make sure it is accurate and up-to-date. Please let us know through this form if you are a part of the VWV team (Investment Committee, Advisors, Alumni) and have changes you wish to make to your personal profile. We appreciate all of you! ๐
๐What Weโre Consuming In Venture
Rex Woodburyโs piece on โThe Why Now for Healthcareโ
Decoding Bioโs BioByte 096 - on DNA data storage, antibody shuttling to brain, CRISPR for pet control, and more
Dwarkesh Podcast featuring Gwern Branwen - on AI, writing, and rabbit-holes
Thatโs it for this week, feel free to email me at daniel_k_lee@brown.edu with any inquiries!
โจ Follow us:
Instagram: @vanwickleventures
Twitter: @VanWickleV