OpenAI to Develop Robots; Its Robots with Human-like Intelligence on the Way

 

On Saturday, January 11, Caitlin Kalinowski, director of OpenAI's hardware division, revealed on her social media account that OpenAI would develop robots equipped with custom sensors.

 

Kalinowski highlighted three positions on OpenAI's robotics team: an EE sensing engineer, a robotics mechanical design engineer, and a TPM manager, as well as their specific responsibilities. The three job openings are also currently updated on OpenAI's official website.

 

OpenAI's robotics team will focus on developing robots that could operate with human-like intelligence in dynamic and actual environments. Hence, the OpenAI team will autonomously develop sensors and computational components powered by its AI models.

 

OpenAI did not specify whether its first robot would be humanoid but said the team would explore various robot shapes instead. One of the job postings, however, implies that the robot may have four limbs.

 

In December 2024, it was rumored that OpenAI considered developing a humanoid robot designed and built to mimic human shape, structure, and behavior.

 

Sources said that OpenAI's top priority remained strengthening advanced reasoning models and developing AI assistants, rather than robotics projects.

 

However, OpenAI's robotics team, which was dismissed in 2021, has been constantly rumored to be restarted by OpenAI in the past two years. In June 2023, OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman stated that OpenAI was interested in this reboot. The company hopes to restart robotics research.

 

It is worth noting that even though the internal robotics research is terminated, OpenAI has continued to plan for robotics. In recent years, OpenAI has invested in several companies focused on developing humanoid robotics, including robotics developers Figure AI and 1X Technologies, and robotics general-purpose model developer Physical Intelligence.

 

Peter Wellinder, OpenAI's vice president and former robotics team member, said that OpenAI always planned to return to robotics.

 

OpenAI's powerful big models and strong computational power are indeed an advantage in developing robots.

 

#openai #Robotics