Not long ago, having a robot in your home meant plugging in a Roomba to clean your floors.
Thanks to AI and ML, robots are getting smarter and more human. Your next robot companion could be a two-legged humanoid if futurists get their way.
Photo Credit: Google
Robotics advanced greatly in 2022. At Tesla’s 2022 AI Day, the firm showcased the first two functional prototypes of the Tesla Bot: a walking humanoid called Optimus, created with off-the-shelf materials, and a second, more advanced version of Optimus.
Optimus uses Tesla’s self-driving AI, but instead of navigating roads and understanding traffic lights, the AI detects common items and humans. Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed the robot was supposed to be a gift for parents.
Musk says Optimus will be mass-produced in the millions. It’ll be cheaper than a car.
Tesla isn’t the only company materializing AI. Google is revolutionizing robotics by giving its AI brain a robot body. Google’s Palm Say-Can AI was implemented into Everyday Robots’ robots in 2022. The robot brain employs machine learning to grasp imprecise instructions like “I’m hungry” and then solves the problem.
When you think about assistant robots, Google and Tesla may not come to mind. These tech giants are creating ultra-intelligent droids that can navigate and interact with people.
This week on What the Future, we look at how robotics is changing and the firms seeking to push robots into our lives, blurring human and machine. The video above shows the robots to watch in the year ahead, from Optimus to “self-healing” slime robots.
Credit: CNET
