Smiling humanoid robots have been shown to sort objects, drop off packages and even tidy up a child’s toys in eerie new footage.
The near-silent video, released by robotics company 1X, shows dozens of the company’s EVE robots performing these various tasks in a large test environment that simulated office spaces and a living room.
The demonstration showcased the EVE robots’ ability to learn and perform various tasks autonomously just by watching footage, 1X representatives said in a statement. 1X eventually wants to provide companies with a supply of physical labor using its androids.
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The company claimed it trained the robots using a neural network — a collection of artificial intelligence (AI) machine-learning models organized in such a way as to mimic how the human brain is structured. A neural network comprises artificial neurons that replicate the architecture of the human brain to learn from data, and then apply its learnings to new data.
A single, vision-based neural network controls all of the robots’ behaviors shown in the video. It works by gathering and analyzing images from the machines, before sending out commands to control how the robots move and act.
The company trained the machine-learning models with data captured from 30 EVE robots, which the team then used to train a “base model” that can process several types of physical behaviors — from tidying up to interacting socially with humans and other robots. Scientists later fine-tuned the model and tweaked the physical behaviors so the machines could better perform specific tasks.
Through this process, the company claimed it could onboard new skills “in just minutes of data collection” and training, using a desktop-class graphics card. This claim is significant because it would normally take a massive amount of computing power to train an AI model.
Another AI robotics company, Figure, showcased an AI-powered humanoid robot that its creators claim can perform tasks just by watching footage. Figure released footage in January showing its Figure 01 humanoid robot making coffee, having supposedly learned to do it by watching 10 hours of footage.