Toyota’s Robots Are Learning to Do Housework—By Copying Humans

Toyota’s Robots Are Learning to Do Housework—By Copying Humans

As someone who quite enjoys the Zen of tidying up, I was only too happy to grab a dustpan and brush and sweep up some beans spilled on a tabletop while visiting the Toyota Research Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts last year. The chore was more challenging than usual because I had to do it using … Read more

The Man Who Made Robots Dance Now Wants Them to Think for Themselves

The Man Who Made Robots Dance Now Wants Them to Think for Themselves

Some robots, including from Boston Dynamics, are already doing warehouse work. Do you expect to see that humanoid workforce growing in the coming years? Warehouse work is one of the great applications at the moment because there’s such a need for people. Employers are really frustrated with the difficulty of getting humans and training them … Read more

My Surprisingly Unbiased Week With Elon Musk’s ‘Politically Biased’ Chatbot

My Surprisingly Unbiased Week With Elon Musk’s ‘Politically Biased’ Chatbot

Musk has appeared to acknowledge the problem. This week, when an X user asked if xAI would be working to reduce Grok’s political bias, he replied, “Yes.” But tuning a chatbot to express views that satisfy his followers might prove challenging—especially when much of xAI’s training data may be drawn from X, a hotbed of … Read more