A renewed deal with robots would counsel that OpenAI believes reaching synthetic basic intelligence (AGI)—AI that exceeds human intelligence—could require growing algorithms which are able to interacting with the bodily world.
OpenAI did notable robotics analysis in its early years, together with growing an algorithm able to fixing a Rubik’s dice utilizing a humanlike hand in 2019. The corporate shuttered its robotics effort in 2021, nevertheless, to deal with algorithms together with the massive language fashions which have pushed current breakthroughs equivalent to ChatGPT. OpenAI restarted work on robots last year, and The Information reported in December 2024 that the corporate was contemplating growing its personal humanoid robots.
Stefanie Tellex, a roboticist at Brown College, says that constructing more practical robots will contain designing and coaching AI fashions able to “processing high-frame-rate, high-dimensional perceptual enter, and producing high-frame-rate, high-dimensional bodily outputs”—which means fashions that may see and act with excessive constancy. Tellex isn’t conversant in OpenAI’s plans particularly, nevertheless.
Regardless of already having industry-leading fashions for dialog, reasoning, coding, and picture and video era, OpenAI will probably be racing a collection of sturdy rivals because it seeks to develop the algorithms for extra succesful humanoid robots. A handful of humanoid startups, together with Figure, Agility, and Apptronik, have emerged over the previous few years, and a few main AI corporations, together with Tesla and Google, are additionally investing in growing and testing humanoids. “I don’t see them having any magical benefit over anybody else,” says Tellex.
Humanoids have gotten more and more in style because the {hardware} and software program wanted to construct functioning prototypes turns into extra frequent. Whereas humanoids are nonetheless costly and tough to develop, new sorts of motors and different elements have made it cheaper and simpler to place collectively functioning techniques. Software program equivalent to Nvidia’s Isaac robotic improvement platform have additionally made it less complicated to put in writing the code wanted to regulate and practice humanoid techniques.
Humanoid hype can be constructing. Enterprise capitalists have invested more than $5 billion in humanoid startups because the begin of 2024. Morgan Stanley reckons that the humanoid {industry} could be worth $5 trillion by 2050.
Whereas humanoids can carry out spectacular feats like dancing, they nonetheless lack the intelligence required to function in complicated and unpredictable, or “unstructured,” environments. To accumulate this, they’ll want algorithms that transcend a big language mannequin’s understanding of the bodily world. These techniques should have the ability to management limbs and grippers with a purpose to stroll and manipulate bodily gadgets. Some analysis teams are beginning to exhibit progress in growing extra typically succesful AI fashions for robots.
On the identical time, it’s turning into more and more clear that new concepts could also be wanted to push AI ahead. The current disappointment of OpenAI’s GPT-5 is a part of a broader realization that reaching humanlike intelligence would require new avenues of analysis.
“They’ve asymptoted on GPT-5,” says Tellex. “They should transfer in direction of the bodily world.”