OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, seeks to merge its artificial intelligence systems into the bodies of humanoid robots as part of a new agreement with robotics startup Figure.
Figure, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., announced the partnership Thursday along with $675 million in venture capital funding from a group that includes Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as well as Microsoft, chipmaker Nvidia and the startup funding divisions of Intel and OpenAI.
Figure is less than two years old and has no commercial product, but it is persuading influential tech industry backers to support its vision of shipping billions of human-like robots into workplaces and businesses. homes around the world.
“If we can just get humanoids to do work that humans don’t want to do because there’s a shortage of humans, we can sell millions of humanoids, billions maybe,” said the Figure CEO Brett Adcock told the Associated Press last year.
For OpenAI, which branched out into robotics research before focusing on the large AI language models that power ChatGPT, the partnership “will open up new possibilities for how robots can help in everyday life.” , said Peter Welinder, vice president of the San Francisco company. president of products and partnerships, in a written statement.
Financial terms of the deal between Figure and OpenAI were not disclosed. The collaboration will allow OpenAI to create specialized AI models for Figure’s humanoid robots, likely based on OpenAI’s existing technology such as GPT language models, the DALL-E image generator and the new image generator. Sora video.
This will help “accelerate Figure’s commercial timeline” by enabling its robots to “process and reason from language,” according to Figure’s announcement. The company announced a deal with BMW in January to operate its robots at an auto factory in Spartanburg, South Carolina, but had not yet determined exactly how or when they would be used.
Robotics experts differ on the usefulness of robots fashioned into human shapes. Most robots used in factory and warehouse tasks may have animal-like features – a robotic arm, finger-like pincers or even legs – but are not truly humanoid. This is partly because it took decades for robotics engineers to develop robots that could walk efficiently on two legs or manipulate small objects reliably.
Whitney Rockley, co-founder and managing partner of Toronto-based venture capital firm McRock Capital, said she understands the appeal of humanoids because they allow for identification, evoking emotion and start conversations. In practice, however, she said they remain inconvenient and pose enormous technical challenges, which is why she sticks to investing in non-humanoid robots.
“We’re looking at robotics and automation in a very practical way and saying, ‘What kind of timeline are we willing to commit to in order to actually see commercial takeoff, deployments and applications?’” Rockley said. “And I think the groups that are supporting a lot of humanoid solutions right now are here for the long haul, which is great because you need them, but it’s going to take decades and decades.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman hinted at a renewed interest in robotics in a podcast hosted by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and released earlier this year, in which Altman said that the company was beginning to invest in promising robotic hardware platforms after abandoning its own research.
“We started the robots too early and so we had to put that project on hold,” Altman told Gates, noting that “we were dealing with bad simulators and broken tendons” that were distracting from the robot’s other work. ‘business.
“We realized more and more over time that what we really needed first was intelligence and cognition, and then figuring out how to adapt that to physical reality,” he said. he declares.
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THE AP signed a deal with OpenAI to access its news archives.
