OpenAI revives its robotic research team, plans to build dedicated AI

OpenAI being in the news isn’t a novelty at all. This time it’s bagging headlines for restarting its robotics research group after three years. A ChatGPT developer confirmed this move in an interview with Forbes.

It has been almost four years since OpenAI had disbanded a team which researched ways of using AI to teach robots new tasks.

According to media reports, OpenAI is now on the verge of developing a host of multimodal large language models for robotics use cases. A multimodal model is a neural network capable of processing various types of input, not just text. For instance, it can handle data from a robot’s onboard sensors.

OpenAI had bid goodbye to its original robotics research group. Wojciech Zaremba said, “I actually believe quite strongly in the approach that the robotics [team] took in that direction, but from the perspective of AGI [artificial general intelligence], I think that there was actually some components missing. So when we created the robotics [team], we thought that we could go very far with self-generated data and reinforcement learning.” 

Onboarding a robotics engineer

According to a report in Forbes, OpenAI has been hiring again for its robotics team and they have been actively on the lookout for a research robotics engineer. They are seeking an individual skilled in “training multimodal robotics models to unlock new capabilities for our partners’ robots, researching and developing improvements to our core models, exploring new model architectures, collecting robotics data, and conducting evaluations.”

“We’re looking for candidates with a strong research background and experience in shipping AI applications,” the company stated.

Earlier this year, OpenAI also invested in humanoid developer Figure AI’s Series B fundraising. This investment highlights OpenAI’s clear interest in robotics.

Focus on advanced AI technology with robotics

Over the past year, OpenAI has significantly invested in the robotics field through its startup fund, pouring millions into companies like Figure AI, 1X Technologies, and Physical Intelligence. These investments underscore OpenAI’s keen interest in advancing humanoid robots. In February, OpenAI hinted at a renewed focus on robotics when Figure AI secured additional funding. Shortly after, Figure AI released a video showcasing a robot with basic speech and reasoning skills, powered by OpenAI’s model.

Peter Welinder, OpenAI’s vice president and a member of the original robotics team, stated, “We’ve always planned to return to robotics, and we see a path with Figure to explore the potential of humanoid robots powered by highly capable multimodal models.”

According to the report, OpenAI doesn’t intend to compete directly with other robotics companies. Instead, it aims to develop AI technology that other manufacturers can integrate into their robots. Job listings indicate that new engineers will collaborate with “external partners” to train advanced AI models. It remains unclear if OpenAI will venture into creating its own robotics hardware, a challenge it has faced in the past. For now, the focus seems to be on leveraging its AI expertise to enhance robotic functionalities.

Apple joins hands with OpenAI

Apart from this Apple has also been reported to collaborate with OpenAI so that it can inculcate ChatGPT technology into its iOS 18 operating systems for iPhones, according to different media outlets. 

The integration of ChatGPT, an advanced AI developed by OpenAI under Sam Altman’s leadership, is set to revolutionize how Siri comprehends and responds to complex queries. This partnership, anticipated to be officially announced at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), has been in the works for several months and has faced internal challenges and resistance from both companies.