OpenAI to boost development of smart humanoid robots

The artificial intelligence (AI) company, OpenAI, is presumably planning to re-enter the field of robotics. This is evident from a trademark application and new job advertisements placed by the company, in which various robotics engineers are being sought.

In a trademark application filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (uspto) at the end of January, OpenAI lists a number of new products to be developed by the company. These include "user-programmable humanoid robots that are not preconfigured" and "humanoid robots with communication and learning capabilities to assist and entertain humans".

Roboticists wanted

The company has also placed job advertisements on its own website. It is looking for two roboticists to become part of a robotics team at OpenAI. Specifically, this involves a senior research engineer and a product engineer. They will help to develop general-purpose robotics and raise robot intelligence to the level of general artificial intelligence. The aim is to "seamlessly combine advanced AI capabilities with the physical limitations of physical robot platforms".

The lead research engineer will be responsible for the development of basic models in the early stages of OpenAI's robotics initiative and will help steer the direction of robotics development.

OpenAI itself does not make any concrete statements about its own ambitions in the field of humanoid robots. However, the dispute between OpenAI and its cooperation partner Figure AI could give a further boost to the establishment of its own development department. The robotics company Figure AI, developer of one of the world's most advanced humanoid robots, recently terminated its collaboration with OpenAI. The company does not believe that OpenAI's generative AI is sufficiently suitable for humanoid robots.

Figure AI has its own AI in development, which has already been geared towards the hardware of the robot system from the outset and is therefore better suited. Brett Adcock, CEO of Figure AI, announced that within a month he wanted to show new robot functions that "no one has ever seen in a humanoid before".

OpenAI had already operated its own robotics department, but then largely dissolved it in 2020. Since May 2024, OpenAI has increased its efforts to rebuild robotics in-house. The Information claims to have learned in December 2024 that OpenAI is planning to develop its own humanoid robot.

(olb)