Tech & Society
Robots On the Loading Dock: Tensions mount as automation transforms U.S. shipping ports
Shipping ports are the latest front in the rising tension between labor unions and AI-powered automation.
Robotics
Tech & Society
A Year of Contending Forces: State of AI report highlights 2024’s major trends and breakthroughs
A new report documents the interplay of powerful forces that drove AI over the past year: open versus proprietary technology, public versus private financing, innovation versus caution.
Machine Learning Research
Robot Server: Google’s table tennis robot triumphs over beginners
A robot that plays table tennis beats human beginners and entertains experts.
Business
Amazon Boosted by Covariant: Amazon strengthens logistics and robotics with new AI partnership
Amazon took on talent and technology from robotics startup Covariant to enhance its warehouse automation, an area critical to its core ecommerce business.
Machine Learning Research
Brain-Controlled Robots Get More Versatile: NOIR, a system to control robots via electroencephalogram for everyday tasks
Brain-to-computer interfaces that enable users to control robots with their thoughts typically execute a single type of task such as reaching and grasping. Researchers designed a system that responds to a variety of intentions.
Machine Learning Research
Robo-Football From Simulation to Reality: Reinforcement learning powers humanoid robots to play football
Humanoid robots can play football (known as soccer in the United States) in the real world, thanks to reinforcement learning.
Machine Learning Research
Conversational Robots: RFM-1, a model that enables robots to understand and act on human commands
Robots equipped with large language models are asking their human overseers for help.
Science
Robot Chemist: RoboChem, a system that outshines human chemists in chemical synthesis efficiency
A robot outperformed human chemists at synthesizing chemicals. Researchers at University of Amsterdam built RoboChem, an integrated robotic system that learned to design light-activated chemical reactions while achieving optimal yields and throughput.
Machine Learning Research
This Language Model Speaks Robot: PaLM-E, the model that improves robot control with large language model expertise
A pretrained large language model has helped a robot resolve high-level commands into sequences of subtasks. It can do this more precisely with additional training — both on language-vision tasks and robotics tasks.
Tech & Society
ChatGPT’s Best Friend: Unitree's robot dog Go2 is smarter than ever.
The latest robot dog is smarter — and less expensive — than ever. Unitree Robotics of Hangzhou, China, unleashed Go2, a quadruped robot that trots alongside its owner, stands on two legs, jumps, talks, takes photos, and retails for less than a high-end MacBook.
Machine Learning Research
Sample-Efficient Training for Robots: Reinforcement learning from human feedback to train robots
Training an agent that controls a robot arm to perform a task — say, opening a door — that involves a sequence of motions (reach, grasp, turn, pull, release) can take from tens of thousands to millions of examples...
Business
AI Shows Its Metal: How Machina Labs uses AI to automate metal fabrication
Neural networks are predicting how metal will deform under pressure to pilot robots through the tricky process of fabricating aircraft. Machina Labs crafts metal using AI-guided robotic arms.