Humanoid robots were out of reach in the past and could only appear in science fiction novels or movies. However, with the rapid development of AI and the investment of resources from teams of big tech companies and startups, this dream seems to be getting closer and closer.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said in the latest issue of Power On that Meta and Apple are not only competing in VR (Virtual Reality) and MR (Mixed Reality) devices and applications, but the next battleground may be AI-powered humanoid robots.
Meta confirmed to foreign media that a new team has been formed within Reality Labs, led by Marc Whitten, former CEO of General Motors' self-driving taxi Cruise, and reported to Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth.
According to people familiar with the matter, the new team plans to develop humanoid robots, and perhaps one day people may see Meta's own brand of robots, but its short-term goal should be to create an underlying software platform to help hardware manufacturers enter the field of humanoid robots, with a strategy similar to Android's approach. In addition, Meta has begun discussions with robotics companies, including Unitree Robotics and Fige AI.
Meta has developed sensors and computing technologies for mixed reality, as well as a series of Llama models that can drive robots to run, giving it a technological advantage in the robotics market. "We have invested in and built core technologies in Reality Labs and AI, which complement the advances needed to develop robotics," reads Andrew Bosworth in a memo provided to Bloomberg.
On the other hand, Apple has its own ideas for the development of the field of robotics, and tends to control all key technology products, including hardware, software, etc. Extending this idea, Apple explores a humanoid robot with AI and a high degree of technology integration at its core.
Apple has an advanced AI research team within its autonomous machine learning team focused on developing robotics technology, and a smart home hardware engineering group interested in robotics. In the short term, a desktop device will be launched as a high-end smart home product; Also explore the possibilities of mobile robots, similar to Amazon Astro.
It's worth mentioning that Apple has spent more than a decade developing its self-driving car project, and although the project was terminated last year, the lessons learned during the development process can be used to make the development of robots less wrong.