With rapid advances in artificial intelligence, computer scientists and engineers are developing robots that look and behave like humans. A race to develop widely used humanoid robots is underway worldwide.
Boston Dynamics has established itself as a frontrunner in this field. With support from South Korean automaker Hyundai, which owns 88% of Boston Dynamics, the Massachusetts company is testing a new generation of humanoid robots called Atlas.
In October, the 5-foot-9, 200-pound Atlas was put to the test at Hyundai's new Georgia plant, where it practiced autonomously sorting roof racks for an assembly line.
Scott Quindersma, head of robotics research at Boston Dynamics, says today's AI-powered humanoids are learning behaviors that until recently were considered a step too far for machines.
“A lot of it has to do with how we currently program these robots, which is more focused on education, demonstration, and machine learning than manual programming,” Kuindersma said.
How to train Atlas
For 60 minutes Visiting Boston Dynamics Headquarters in 2021Atlas was a large hydraulic robot that could run and jump. At the time, Atlas relied on algorithms written by engineers. Today's Atlas is more sophisticated, with an all-electric body and an AI brain. Nvidia's Equipped with an advanced microchip, they are smart enough to learn incredible tricks.
Atlas learns in several ways. At Boston Dynamics, machine learning scientist Kevin Bergamin demonstrated an example of supervised learning. Wearing a virtual reality headset, Bergamin took direct control of the humanoid robot, guiding its hands and arms through each task until Atlas succeeded.
“This generates data that can be used to train the robot's AI model and later perform its tasks autonomously,” Quindersma said.
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Another teaching technique involves motion capture body suits. 60 Minutes correspondent Bill Whitaker wore this suit while doing jumping jacks.
Atlas' body is different from Whitaker's, so the robot was trained to match his movements. The data collected by the motion capture suit was fed into Boston Dynamics' machine learning process.
More than 4,000 digital atlases were trained in a six-hour simulation. The simulation added challenges to the avatar, including slippery floors, slopes, and stiff joints, to determine the best way for Atlas to perform jumping jacks.
The Boston Dynamics team then uploaded new skills to the AI system that controls all Atlas robots. When one was trained, all were trained. At the end of the process, Atlas performed jumping jacks exactly like Whittaker's.
Having learned from the same technique, Atlas demonstrated the ability to run, crawl, skip and dance.
Quindersma said there are limits. Atlas is not good at performing most of the mundane tasks that people do in daily life, such as getting dressed and pouring coffee.
“There are no humanoids that do it nearly as well as humans,” Quindersma said. “But I think what’s really exciting now is that we see a path to getting there.”
The future of humanoids
Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Player spearheaded the company's humanoid development efforts.
“There's a lot of excitement in the industry right now about the possibility of building robots that are smart enough to be truly versatile,” he said.
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Goldman Sachs predicts the humanoid market will reach $38 billion within 10 years. Boston Dynamics and other U.S. robot makers are fighting to stay on top. Chinese companies with state support are also joining the competition.
“The Chinese government has a mission to win the robot development race,” Player said. “Technically, we believe we continue to be in the lead. However, there is a real threat that we could be left behind simply by the size of our investment.”
Should humans be concerned about humanoids?
Humanoid robots are learning how to do human jobs, amid growing concerns that AI will replace workers. Boston Dynamics is training Atlas to perform jobs currently performed by human workers at Hyundai Motor Company's Georgia plant.
Player predicted that while it may be several years before Atlas becomes a full-time Hyundai employee, humanoids will change the nature of work.
“The really repetitive, really hard labor is going to end up being done by robots. But these robots aren't as autonomous, so they don't need to be managed. They need to be built, they need to be trained, and they need to be maintained.”
Player said there are benefits to creating robots like Atlas that can move in ways that humans can't.
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“we would like [robots] “It might be stronger than us, it might be able to withstand heat better than us, it might go to dangerous places that we definitely shouldn't go to. So you really want superhuman abilities,” he said.
Still, Player said there's no need to worry about a future like the one portrayed in “The Terminator.”
”[If you] We now know how hard we have to work to get robots to do the simple tasks we want them to do. “That would eliminate concerns about sentient and rogue robots,” he said.
