Humanoid Robot Maker Signs Deal to Put OpenAI Tech in Their Brains

AI Robot Uprising

Humanoid robot maker Figure has announced a new deal with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.

The company recently closed a $675 million round of funding at a $2.6 billion valuation as well, with notable backers including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Microsoft, and AI chipmaker Nvidia.

It's a notable agreement, especially considering Figure has yet to release a viable commercial product — which highlights just how much momentum there is in the AI space as investors hope for gargantuan growth.

Figure is hoping to give its future robots the ability to understand language using AI, giving them new capabilities that could have them learning at much faster rates. What could possibly go wrong?

Coffee Maker

Earlier this week, Figure released a video of an early prototype robot called Figure 01, which was able to walk, pick up a plastic crate, and place it on a nearby conveyor belt.

Last month, Figure CEO Brett Adcock shared a different video of the robot using a coffee machine, a feat he called "groundbreaking" thanks to an "end-to-end AI" that allowed it to learn all the steps in one go.

With the help of OpenAI, Figure is hoping to develop "next generation AI models for humanoid robots," allowing them to "process and reason from language," per the company's press release.

But Figure is far from alone in the space. Tesla is also developing its own robot called Optimus, which is designed to be "capable of performing tasks that are unsafe, repetitive or boring."

Agility Robotics is also hoping to open a factory to produce bipedal robots in the thousands.

However, with the backing of some major investors and OpenAI, Figure just made a big step forward.

"If we can just get humanoids to do work that humans are not wanting to do because there’s a shortfall of humans, we can sell millions of humanoids, billions maybe," Figure CEO Brett Adcock told the Associated Press last year.

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