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Boston Dynamics, long at the cutting edge of robotics, is now touting a breakthrough in leveling up its robots for the real world.
Why It Hits: Boston Dynamics is no longer the only player in the robotics game, facing competition from Big Tech players like Tesla, startups like Figure, and new entrants like Meta. If Boston Dynamics can scale robot independence (of movement, not sovereignty), then it could be the first company to make machines accessible to the average… er, wealthy… consumer.
Behind the Code: Boston Dynamics founder and chairman Marc Raibert told Wired that the company will soon no longer need to “handcraft everything that robots do.”
- State of play: The company’s dog-like Spot robot is already used on oil rigs and construction sites, while its humanoid Atlas robot is used for research.
- New breakthrough: While most robots have to be pre-programmed or directly controlled to complete tasks, Boston Dynamics is using an AI technique called “reinforcement learning.”
- Under the hood: Reinforcement learning involves a robot using machine learning to learn faster through experimentation and feedback loops… but Boston Dynamics has created simulations that allow them to do it all in their heads.
The Future: Raibert told Wired that the new training method means, “You don’t have to get as much physical behavior from the robot [to generate] good performance.” And with Raibert founding the Robotics and AI (RAI)Institute last year to incubate more crossover between robotics and AI, that almost promises those robot dancing videos will only get more uncanny.
Let’s just make sure we never end up in an I, Robot situation.
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