What’s going on here? Robotics company Figure AI – valued last year at $2.6 billion – ditched its collaboration with OpenAI, determined to work out the whole “humanoids taking over the world” thing alone. What does this mean? Figure has quite the support network, counting Microsoft, Nvidia, and Jeff Bezos’ Explore Investments as backers. And with plenty of shoulders to lean on, the robotics firm has decided it can afford to bow out of its partnership with OpenAI. Instead, Figure will focus on its in-house system – which, it just so happens, has reached a point of “major breakthrough”. The company has said that in the next month, it’ll showcase “something no one has ever seen on a humanoid”. Let’s hope it’s not a desire to watch the world burn: Figure’s on track to make 100,000 robots over the next four years. Why should I care? Zooming in: Welcome to Stepford. The act of giving life – or, uh, integrating AI into physical objects like robots – produces aptly named “embodied AI” systems. Now, that isn’t OpenAI’s primary focus by any means. But clearly, the industry’s whizz kid doesn’t want to miss a trick. Despite the colossal costs that come with this type of development, OpenAI recently applied for patents concerning humanoid hardware. Plus, the firm’s a major investor in 1X – a Norwegian robotics startup focused on building humanoids for home use. The bigger picture: Hi, Robot. The top dogs at Tesla and Nvidia have both praised humanoids as the next major opportunity in the AI space. Elon Musk has laid – self-described – ambitious plans to build 10,000 robots this year. He estimates the walking, talking tech could bring in more than $10 trillion over the long term, easily enough to become the most valuable arm of Tesla’s business. But only time (and a lot of it) will tell if the robots can deliver… if they don’t go all “Terminator” on us first, that is. |