Will 2025 be the year we see workplace robots in public spaces?
That’s something carriers hope to achieve next year, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Tuesday (December 31).
The robot and drone industry had attracted about $12.8 billion in venture capital funding through mid-December, the report said, citing data from PitchBook. This compares to the $11.6 billion raised by the sector in all of 2023.
But while robot makers are excited about what generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) can do for their products, they admit it may take time for robots to successfully interact with humans. said the WSJ.
“What is very easy for humans can be very difficult for robots,” says Brain Corporation, which develops software for automated floor-cleaning and inventory-control robots used by retailers such as Sam’s Club. said David Ping, CEO of
Even the simple task of picking up and moving random objects “is a very difficult problem in the world of robotics,” he said.
And at Methodist Health System in Houston, Chief Innovation Officer Roberta Schwartz learned that robots that performed tasks such as checking fire extinguishers and delivering towels had a tendency to get confused with elevators and hit objects. Ta.
The report notes that robots working with humans will need greater dexterity and the ability to avoid obstacles, both problems that generative AI can solve.
“By training robots through vast datasets, we will be able to achieve this kind of dexterity that was previously only achievable through our own labor,” Brain Corp’s Ping said.
PYMNTS investigated this issue earlier this month after MIT researchers announced PRoC3S. PRoC3S is a new AI system that enables warehouse robots to handle oddly shaped packages and navigate crowded spaces more effectively.
The system blends AI language models and computer vision to test actions in a virtual environment before executing them, completing basic tasks like drawing shapes and sorting blocks by 80% during lab tests. Complete with precision. PRoC3S aims to enable robots to perform complex warehouse tasks that typically require human dexterity.
“Theoretically, PRoC3S can reduce robot error rates by scrutinizing initial LLM-based assumptions in light of a more specific and accurate understanding of the warehouse environment,” said CEO of Plus One Robotics. and co-founder Erik Nieves told PYMNTS.
“Think of it like this: It explains how a warehouse robot working solely with LLM guidance can complete a task. The concept of PRoC3S is to place a digital robot in a simulated environment for that task. , it goes one step further. It’s essentially the difference between classroom instruction and a really good field trip.”
