The race to bring AI-powered humanoid robots into homes and workplaces all over the world took a brand new turn today when Figure, an organization that received $675 million in funding from OpenAI amongst others in its last round in February, today released a trailer video for its latest model: Figure 02, together with the date August 6, 2024.
As you'll see within the video, it's light on detail, but heavy on mood and close-ups. It shows views of what seem like robotic joints and limbs, in addition to some interesting, possibly flexible mesh designs for the robot's body, and labels for torque values as much as 150 Nm (Newton meters, or “the torque produced by a force of 1 newton applied perpendicularly to the top of a one-meter lever arm,” in keeping with Google's AI Overview) and “ROM,” which I understand to mean a “range of motion” of as much as 195 degrees (out of 360 total).
Founder Brett Adcock also posted on his personal X/Twitter account that Figure 02 is “essentially the most advanced humanoid robot on the planet.”
Backed by big names in technology and AI
Adcock, an entrepreneur who previously founded the wacky startups Archer Aviation and the roles marketplace Vettery, founded Figure AI in 2022.
In March 2023 Figure emerged from stealth mode We would love to introduce Figure 01, a general-purpose humanoid robot designed to handle the worldwide labor shortage by performing tasks in various industries akin to manufacturing, logistics, warehousing and retail.
With a team of 40 industry experts, including Dr. Jerry Pratt as CTO, Figure AI was in a position to complete the full-sized humanoid in only six months. Adcock sees the robots as increasing productivity and safety by taking up unsafe and undesirable jobs, ultimately contributing to a more automated and efficient future. He stresses that they may never be used as weapons.
The company, whose investors and supporters include OpenAI, NVidia, Microsoft, Intel Capital and Bezos Expeditions (the private fund of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos), signed a contract with BMW Manufacturing earlier this 12 months and showed impressive integrations with OpenAI's GPT-4V or the vision model within the Figure 01 robot, ahead of the discharge of OpenAI's latest flagship GPT-4o and GPT-4o mini.
Presumably, the movement and interaction of Figure 02 is controlled by certainly one of these newer OpenAI models, certainly one of the leading names.
The competition for the event of humanoid robotics is intensifying
Figure has been a bit quiet these days, although other firms have demonstrated designs for humanoid robots with artificial intelligence which can be intended to help people in warehouses, factories, industrial plants, logistics centers, retirement homes, retail stores, healthcare facilities and, after all, in private homes.
Although humanoid robots have long been a dream in science fiction stories, their debut as industrial products has been slow and marred by expensive designs which have been limited primarily to research environments. But that's changing because of generative AI, and specifically large language models (LLMs) and multimodal AI models that may quickly analyze live video and audio input and respond with human-like sound and movements of their very own.
In fact, billionaire and multi-company owner Elon Musk recently declared together with his usual impetuous bravery and bold goal: There was a marketplace for greater than 10 billion humanoid robots on Earth (multiple for everyone) – which he desired to dominate, or not less than get a bit of, together with his electric automobile and AI company Tesla Motors (which is making its own competing humanoid robot to…). called Tesla Optimus).
Over and beyond, NVIDIA showed latest improvements for training the AI that guides humanoid robots through Project GR00T, using Apple Vision Pro headsets worn by human teleoperators to guide the robots through the right movements:
And previously, Boston Dynamics, the pioneer of humanoid robotics, unveiled its own updated version of its humanoid robot Atlas, replacing the hydraulic drives with electric motors, which might presumably end in a less expensive, quieter, more reliable and more robust bot.
So competition on this sector appears to be heating up. But with such big backers and a lot momentum, Figure seems well positioned to further advance its own efforts on this space.
