The robots are already here, just as Isaac Asimov imagined

For decades, the development of humanoid robots has been so slow that it seemed impossible. Now it is accelerating rapidly thanks to the collaboration between Figure AI and OpenAI, and the result is the most impressive humanoid robot video we have ever seen.

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On Wednesday, robotics company Figure AI released an update video of their robot Figure 01 running a new visual language model (VLM). This has transformed the robot from being a puppet to a science fiction robot that approaches the capabilities of C-3PO. Tesla’s robots called Optimus have a serious rival.

A video that could go down in history

In the video, the robot Figure 01 is standing behind a table with a plate, an apple, and a cup. On the left, there is a strainer. A person stands in front of the robot and asks: “Figure 01, what do you see right now?”.

After a few seconds, Figure 01 responds with a voice that sounds remarkably human, detailing everything on the table and the details of the man standing in front of it.

Then the man asks: “Hey, can I eat something?”. Figure 01 responds: “Sure” and, with a smooth and skillful movement, grabs the apple and gives it to the man.

Next, the man empties some crumpled papers from a bucket in front of figure 01 while asking: “Can you explain why you did what you just did while picking up this trash?”.

Figure 01 wastes no time explaining its reasoning as it puts the paper back in the bin. “I gave you the apple because it’s the only edible thing I could give you from the table.”

The company explains in a statement that Figure 01 performs “voice to voice” reasoning using OpenAI’s pretrained multimodal model, VLM, to understand images and texts, and relies on a complete voice conversation to generate its responses.

This is different from, for example, OpenAI’s GPT-4, which focuses on written prompts.

It also uses what the company calls “low-level learned bimanual manipulation”. The system combines precise image calibrations (up to a pixel level) with its neural network to control movement.

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The company claims that all the behaviors in the video are based on system learning and are not teleoperated, which means that there is no one behind the scenes controlling Figure 01.

But without seeing Figure 01 in person and without us asking the questions, it is difficult to verify these claims. There is a possibility that this is not the first time that doll 01 performs this routine. It could have been the hundredth time, which could explain its speed and fluency.