In 2021, 60 Minutes visited the offices of robotics company Boston Dynamics and met an early model of its humanoid robot, Atlas.
It could run, jump and maintain its balance when pushed. But it was bulky, with stiff, mechanical movements.
Now, Atlas can cartwheel, dance, run with human-like fluidity, twist its arms, head and torso 360 degrees, and pick itself up off of the floor using only its feet.
“They call it a humanoid, but he stands up in a way no human could possibly stand up,” correspondent Bill Whitaker told Overtime. “His limbs can bend in ways ours can’t.”
Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Playter told Whitaker that Atlas’ “superhuman” range of motion is keeping with the company’s vision for humanoid robots.
“We think that’s the way you should build robots. Don’t limit yourself to what people can do, but actually go beyond,” Playter said.
Whitaker watched demonstrations of the latest Atlas model at Boston Dynamics’ headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts. Rather than turning around to walk in the other direction, Atlas can simply rotate its upper torso 180 degrees.
“For us to turn around, we have to physically turn around,” he told Overtime. “Atlas just pivots on his core.”
Boston Dynamics’ head of robotics research, Scott Kuindersma, told Whitaker that Atlas doesn’t have wires that cross its the joints of the limbs, torso and head, allowing continuous rotation for tasks and easier maintenance of the robot.
“The robot’s not really limited in its range of motion,” Kuindersma told Whitaker. “One of the reliability issues that you often find in robots is that their wires start to break over time… we don’t have any wires that go across those rotating parts anymore.”
Another upgrade to the Atlas humanoid robot is its AI brain, powered by Nvidia chips.
Atlas’ AI can be trained to do tasks. One way is through teleoperation, in which a human controls the robot. Using virtual reality gear, the teleoperator trains Atlas to do a specific task, repeating it multiple times until the robot succeeds.
Whitaker watched a teleoperation training session. A Boston Dynamics’ machine learning scientist showed Atlas how to stack cups and tie a knot.
Kuindersma told Whitaker robot hands pose a complex engineering problem.
“Human hands are incredible machines that are very versatile. We can do many, many different manipulation tasks with the same hand,” Kuindersma said.
Boston Dynamics’ new Atlas has only three digits on each hand, which can swing into different positions or modes.
“They can act as if they were a hand with these three digits, or this digit can swing around and act more like a thumb,” Kuindersma said.
“It allows the robot to have different shaped grasps, to have two-finger opposing grasp to pick up small objects. And then also make its hands very wide, in order to pick up large objects.”
Kuindersma said the robot has tactile sensors on its fingers, which provide information to Atlas’ neural network so the robot can learn how to manipulate objects with the right amount of pressure.
But Kuindersma said there is still room to improve teleoperation systems.
“Being able to precisely control not only the shape and the motion, but the force of the grippers, is actually an interesting challenge,” Kuindersma told Whitaker.
“I think there’s still a lot of opportunity to improve teleoperation systems, so that we can do even more dexterous manipulation tasks with robots.”
Whitaker told Overtime, “There is quite a bit of hype around these humanoids right now. Financial institutions predict that we will be living with millions, if not billions, of robots in our future. We’re not there yet.”
Whitaker asked Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Playter if the humanoid hype was getting ahead of reality.
“There is definitely a hype cycle right now. Part of that is created by the optimism and enthusiasm we see for the potential,” Playter said.
“But while AI, while software, can sort of move ahead at super speeds… these are machines and building reliable machines takes time… These robots have to be reliable. They have to be affordable. That will take time to deploy.”
The video above was produced by Will Croxton. It was edited by Scott Rosann.
With rapid advances in artificial intelligence, computer scientists and engineers are making progress in developing robots that look and act like humans. A global race is underway to develop humanoid robots for widespread use.
Boston Dynamics has established itself as a frontrunner in the field. With support from South Korean carmaker Hyundai, which owns an 88% stake in Boston Dynamics, the Massachusetts company is testing a new generation of its humanoid robot, Atlas.
This past October, a 5-foot-9-inch, 200-pound Atlas was put to the test at Hyundai’s new Georgia factory, where it practiced autonomously sorting roof racks for the assembly line.
Today’s AI-powered humanoids are learning movements that, until recently, were considered a step too far for a machine, according to Scott Kuindersma, who is the head of robotics research at Boston Dynamics.
“A lot of this has to do with how we’re going about programming these robots now, where it’s more about teaching, and demonstrations, and machine learning than manual programming.” Kuindersma said.
How Atlas is trained
When 60 Minutes visited Boston Dynamics’ headquarters in 2021, Atlas was a bulky, hydraulic robot that could run and jump. Back then, Atlas relied on algorithms written by engineers. The Atlas of today is sleeker, with an all-electric body and an AI brain powered by Nvidia’s advanced microchips, making it smart enough to master hard-to-believe feats.
Atlas learns in several ways. At Boston Dynamics, machine learning scientist Kevin Bergamin demonstrated an example of supervised learning. Wearing a virtual reality headset, Bergamin took direct control of the humanoid and guided its hands and arms through each task until Atlas succeeded.
“That generates data that we can use to train the robot’s AI models to then later do that task autonomously,” Kuindersma said.
Boston Dynamics.head of robotics Scott Kuindersma and Bill Whitaker
60 Minutes
Another teaching technique involves a motion capture body suit. 60 Minutes correspondent Bill Whitaker wore the suit while performing jumping jacks.
Since Atlas’ body is different from Whitaker’s, the robot was trained to match his motions. Data collected by the motion capture suit was fed into Boston Dynamics’ machine learning process.
More than 4,000 digital Atlases trained for six hours in simulation. The simulation added challenges for the avatars — like slippery floors, inclines or stiff joints – and homed in on the best way for Atlas to perform the jumping jacks.
The Boston Dynamics team then uploaded the new skill into the AI system that controls every Atlas robot. Once one was trained, they were all trained. At the end of the process, Atlas performed jumping jacks that looked just like Whitaker’s.
Having learned from the same technique, Atlas demonstrated the ability to run, crawl, skip, and dance.
There are limitations, Kuindersma said. Atlas isn’t proficient at performing most of the routine tasks that people do in their daily lives, like putting on clothes or pouring a cup of coffee.
“There are no humanoids that do that nearly as well as a person,” Kuindersma said. “But I think the thing that’s really exciting now is we see a pathway to get there.”
The future of humanoids
Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Playter spearheaded the company’s humanoid development.
“There’s a lot of excitement in the industry right now about the potential of building robots that are smart enough to really become general purpose,” he said.
Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Playter
60 Minutes
Goldman Sachs predicts the market for humanoids will reach $38 billion within the decade. Boston Dynamics and other U.S. robot makers are fighting to come out on top. State-supported Chinese companies are also in the race.
“The Chinese government has a mission to win the robotics race.,” Playter said. “Technically I believe we remain in the lead. But there’s a real threat there that, simply through the scale of investment, we could fall behind.”
Should humans be worried about humanoids?
As fears grow that AI will displace workers, humanoid robots are learning to perform human tasks. Boston Dynamics is training Atlas to do a job that human workers currently handle at Hyundai’s Georgia plant.
Playter said it could be several years before Atlas becomes a full-time worker at Hyundai, but he predicted that humanoids will change the nature of work.
“The really repetitive, really backbreaking labor is really, is going to end up being done by robots. But these robots are not so autonomous that they don’t need to be managed. They need to be built. They need to be trained. They need to be serviced.”
Playter said there are benefits to creating robots like Atlas, which can move in ways that humans can’t.
60 Minutes
“We would like [robots] that could be stronger than us or tolerate more heat than us or definitely go into a dangerous place where we shouldn’t be going,” he said. “So you really want superhuman capabilities.”
Still, Playter said there’s no reason to worry about a future like the one depicted in “The Terminator.”
“[If you] saw how hard we have to work to get the robots to just do some of the straightforward tasks we want them to do, that would dispel that worry about sentience and rogue robots,” he said.
For decades, engineers have been trying to create robots that look and act human. Now, rapid advances in artificial intelligence are taking humanoids from the lab to the factory floor. As fears grow that AI will displace workers, a global race is underway to develop human-like robots able to do human jobs. Competitors include Tesla, startups backed by Amazon and Nvidia, and state-supported Chinese companies. Boston Dynamics is a frontrunner. The Massachusetts company, valued at more than a billion dollars, is hard at work on a humanoid it calls Atlas. South Korean carmaker Hyundai holds an 88% stake in the robot maker. We were invited to see the first real-world test of Atlas at Hyundai’s new factory near Savannah, Georgia. There, we got a glimpse of a humanoid future that’s coming faster than you might think.
Hyundai’s sprawling auto plant is about as cutting-edge as it gets. More than 1,000 robots work alongside almost 1,500 humans, hoisting, stamping and welding in robotic unison. This may look like the factory of the future, but we found the future of the future in the parts warehouse, tucked away in the back corner, getting ready for work.
Meet Atlas: A 5’9″, 200 pound, AI-powered humanoid created by Boston Dynamics. The rise of the robots is science fiction no more.
Bill Whitaker: I have to say, every time I see it, I just can’t believe what my eyes are seeing. Is this the first time Atlas has been out of the lab?
Zack Jackowski: This is the first time Atlas has been out of the lab doing real work.
Bill Whitaker and Zack Jackowski
60 Minutes
Zack Jackowski heads Atlas development. He has two mechanical engineering degrees from MIT and a mission to turn the robot into a productive worker on the factory floor. We watched as Atlas practiced sorting roof racks for the assembly line without human help.
Bill Whitaker: So he’s working autonomously.
Zack Jackowski: Correct
Bill Whitaker: You’re down here to see how Atlas works in the field, and you’ll be showing Atlas off to your bosses at Hyundai?
Zack Jackowski: Yeah.
Bill Whitaker: Do you feel like a proud papa?
Zack Jackowski: I feel like– a nervous engineer.
Jackowski has been preparing for this moment for a year. We first met him and Atlas a month earlier at Boston Dynamics’ headquarters just outside the city, where he and his team were teaching Atlas skills needed to work at Hyundai. And Atlas, with its AI brain, was gaining knowledge through experience – in other words, it seemed to be learning.
Bill Whitaker: You know how crazy that sounds?
Zack Jackowski: Yeah, a little bit. I– and I– I think a lot of our roboticists would’ve thought that was pretty crazy five, six years ago.
When 60 Minutes last visited Boston Dynamics in 2021, Atlas was a bulky, hydraulic robot that could run and jump. Back then, Atlas relied on algorithms written by engineers. When we dropped in again this past fall, we saw a new generation Atlas with a sleek, all-electric body and an AI brain, powered by Nvidia’s advanced microchips, making Atlas smart enough to pull off hard to believe feats autonomously. We saw Atlas skip and run with ease.
Bill Whitaker: Do you ever stop thinking, gee whiz?
Scott Kuindersma: I remain extremely excited about where we are in the history of robotics but we see that there’s so much more that we can do, as well.
Scott Kuindersma is head of robotics research, a job he proudly wears on his sleeve.
Scott Kuindersma
60 Minutes
Bill Whitaker: You even have on a robot shirt.
Scott Kuindersma: Well, once I saw that this shirt existed, there was no way I wasn’t buying it.
He told us robots today have learned to master moves that until recently were considered a step too far for a machine.
Scott Kuindersma: And a lot of this has to do with how we’re going about programming these robots now, where it’s more about teaching, and demonstrations, and machine learning than manual programming.
Bill Whitaker: So this humanoid, this mechanical human, can actually learn?
Scott Kuindersma: Yes. And– and we found that that’s actually one of the most effective way to program robots like that.
Atlas learns in different ways. In supervised learning, machine learning scientist Kevin Bergamin – wearing a virtual reality headset – takes direct control of the humanoid, guiding its hands and arms, move-by-move through each task until Atlas gets it.
Scott Kuindersma: And if that teleoperator can perform the task that we want the robot to do, and do it multiple times, that generates data that we can use to train the robot’s AI models to then later do that task autonomously.
Kuindersma used me to demonstrate another way Atlas learns.
Scott Kuindersma: That v– very stylish suit that you’re wearing is actually gonna capture all of your body motion to train Atlas to try to mimic exactly your motions. And so you’re about to become a 200-pound metal robot.
He asked me to pick an exercise. They captured the way I work as well.
Bill Whitaker: I am here at the AI Lab at Boston Dynamics. All of my movements, my walking, my d– arm gestures are being picked up by these sensors…
Then engineers put my data into their machine learning process. Atlas’ body is different from mine, so they had to teach it to match my movements virtually – more than 4,000 digital Atlases trained for six hours in simulation.
60 Minutes
Scott Kuindersma: And they’re all trying to do jumping jacks, just like you. And as you can see, they’re just starting to learn, so they’re not very good at it.
The simulation, he told us, added challenges for the avatars, like slippery floors, inclines, or stiff joints, and then homed in on what works best.
Scott Kuindersma: And it can eventually get to a state where we have many copies of Atlas doing really good jumping jacks.
They uploaded this new skill into the AI system that controls every Atlas robot. Once one is trained, they’re all trained.
Scott Kuindersma: So that’s what you look like when you’re exercising.
Bill Whitaker: Uh-huh.
And what I look like doing my job.
Bill Whitaker: I am here at the AI Lab at Boston Dynamics. All of my movements, my walking, my d– arm gestures are being picked up by these sensors …
Bill Whitaker: This is mind-blowing.
Through the same processes, Atlas was taught to crawl, do cartwheels. It didn’t fare as well with the duck walk.
Scott Kuindersma: Oh, that was fun. And then this happens.
Bill Whitaker: And then this happens.
Scott Kuindersma: We love when things like this happen, actually. Because it’s often an opportunity to understand something we didn’t know about the system.
Bill Whitaker: What are some of the limitations you see now?
Scott Kuindersma: Well, I’d- I would say that most things that a person does in their daily lives, Atlas or– other humanoids can’t really do that yet. I think we’re start–
Bill Whitaker: Like- like what?
Scott Kuindersma: Well, just putting on clothes in the morning, or pouring your cup of coffee and walking around the house with it.
Bill Whitaker: That’s too difficult for– for Atlas?
Scott Kuindersma: Yeah, I think there are no humanoids that do that nearly as well as a person would do that. But I think the thing that’s really exciting now is we see a pathway to get there.
A pathway provided by AI. What stands out in this Atlas is its brain. Nvidia chips – the ones that helped launch the AI revolution with ChatGPT – process the flood of collected data, moving this humanoid robot closer to something like common sense.
Scott Kuindersma: So the analogy might be if I was teaching a child how to do free throws in basketball, if I allow them to just explore and come up with their own solutions, sometimes they can come up with a solution that I didn’t anticipate. And that’s true for these systems as well.
Atlas can see its surroundings and is figuring out how the physical world works.
Scott Kuindersma: So that some day you can put a robot like this in a factory and just explain to it what would– you would like it to do, and it has enough knowledge about how the world works that it has a good chance of doing it.
Robert Playter: There’s a lot of excitement in the industry right now about the potential of building robots that are smart enough to really become general purpose.
Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Playter
60 Minutes
Robert Playter, the CEO of Boston Dynamics, spearheaded the company’s humanoid development. He’s been building toward this moment for more than 30 years. The cornerstone was this robotic dog, Spot, introduced almost a decade ago. Spots are trained in heat, cold and varied terrain, and roam the halls of Boston Dynamics.
Robert Playter: So we have some cameras– thermal sensors, acoustic sensors. An array of sensors on its back that lets it collect data about the health of a factory.
Spots carry out quality control checks at Hyundai, making sure the cars have the right parts. They conduct security and industrial inspections at hundreds of sites around the world. What began with Spot has evolved into Atlas.
Robert Playter: So this robot is capable of superhuman motion, and so it’s gonna be able to exceed what we can do.
Bill Whitaker: So you are creating a robot that is meant to exceed the capabilities of humans.
Robert Playter: Why not, right? We– we would like things that could be stronger than us or tolerate more heat than us or definitely go into a dangerous place where we shouldn’t be going. So you really want superhuman capabilities.
Bill Whitaker: To a lotta people that sounds scary. You don’t foresee– a world of Terminators?
Robert Playter: Absolutely not. I think if you saw how hard we have to work to get the robots to just do some of the straightforward tasks we want them to do, that would dispel that– that worry about sentience and rogue robots.
We wondered if people might have more immediate concerns. We saw workers doing a job at the Hyundai plant that Atlas is being trained to perform.
Bill Whitaker: I guarantee you there are going to be people who will say, “I’m gonna lose my job to a robot.”
Robert Playter: Work does change. So the really repetitive, really back-breaking labor is really- is gonna end up being done by robots. But these robots are not so autonomous that they don’t need to be managed. They need to be built. They need to be trained. They need to be serviced.
Playter told us it could be several years before Atlas joins the Hyundai workforce fulltime. Goldman Sachs predicts the market for humanoids will reach $38 billion within the decade. Boston Dynamics and other U.S. robot makers are fighting to come out on top. But they’re not the only ones in the ring. Chinese companies are proving to be formidable challengers. They’re running to win.
Bill Whitaker: Are they outpacing us?
Robert Playter: The Chinese government has a mission to win the robotics race. Technically I believe we remain– in the lead. But there’s a real threat there that, simply through the scale of investment– we could fall behind.
To stay ahead, Hyundai made that big investment in Boston Dynamics.
Zack Jackowski: Four robots…
We were at the Georgia plant when Atlas engineer Zack Jackowski presented Atlas to Heung-soo Kim, Hyundai’s head of global strategy. He came all the way from South Korea to check in on the brave new world the carmaker is funding.
Bill Whitaker: What do you think of the progress that they’ve made with Atlas?
Heung-soo Kim: I think we are on track- about the development. Atlas, so far, it’s very successful. It’s a kind of– a start of great journey. Yeah.
The destination? That humanoid future we mentioned at the start – robots like us working beside us, walking among us. It’s enough to make your head spin.
Produced by Marc Lieberman. Associate producer, Cassidy McDonald. Broadcast associate, Mariah Johnson. Edited by Matt Richman.
Shanghai — A Chinese robot has stepped into the Guinness World Records after completing a three-day, 66-mile trek, the longest reported distance ever walked by a humanoid machine.
The AgiBot A2, which stands about five feet and six inches tall, set off from the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou on the evening of November 10, traversing highways and city streets before arriving at Shanghai’s historic waterfront Bund area on November 13, according to Guinness World Records.
Shanghai-based robot maker AgiBot said its two-legged ambler “navigated varied surfaces … all while adhering to traffic regulations” during its continuous 66-mile journey, which was certified as the first feat of its kind on Thursday.
Video clips published by AgiBot showed the silver-and-black A2 trudging along a road past cyclists and scooters, before picking up its pace and marching down the Bund in front of the Shanghai skyline.
An image taken from a promotional video posted on YouTube by Shanghai-based robotics company AgiBot shows its A2 humanoid walking down a road in the Chinese city in November 2025, during what the Guinness World Records said was a record-setting 66-mile stroll over three days.
AgiBot/YouTube
The world’s tech firms are pouring massive sums into physical AI, with Morgan Stanley predicting that the world could have more than a billion humanoid robots by 2050.
The Chinese government has encouraged domestic firms to develop humanoids, in the hopes of leading the global robotics industry.
Beijing hosted the world’s first-ever humanoid robot games in August, where more than 500 “athletes” vied in disciplines ranging from basketball to competitive cleaning.
AgiBot says the A2 is designed for customer service roles, and is equipped with a chat function and lip-reading capabilities.
Earlier this year, “CBS Mornings” spoke with engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who are working to keep America in the robotics race.
“I like to think about AI and robots as giving people superpowers,” said Professor Daniela Rus, who leads MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab. “With AI, we get cognitive superpowers … On the physical side, we can use machines to extend our reach, to refine our precision, to amplify our strengths.”
“CBS Mornings” cited research and advisory firm Gartner’s estimate that by 2030, 80% of Americans will interact daily in some way with autonomous, AI-powered robots.
With the holiday season around the corner, a proliferation of robots are on sale—but unlike the Furbies and Poo-Chis of the past, today’s robots are powered by AI. And consumer advocates are warning parents to steer clear.
Children’s advocacy group Fairplay published an advisory on Thursday urging families to resist the urge to purchase toys powered by AI LLMs.
“AI toys use the very same AI systems that have produced unsafe, confusing, or harmful experiences for older kids and teens,” the advisory reads. “Yet, they are being marketed to the youngest children, who have the least ability to recognize or protect themselves from these dangers.”
The advisory offered four other reasons to avoid AI toys. It warned that they can prey on children’s trust, blurring the lines between corporate-made machines and caregivers, as well as disrupt children’s understanding of healthy relationships. It also noted that the toys can collect and potentially sell sensitive data even “when they appear to be off.” It finally warned that AI toys can monopolize attention, displacing foundational activities like “actual imaginative, child-led play.” The advisory was endorsed by 160 organizations and individuals including groups like the nonprofit Center for Digital Democracy, Better Screen Time, and Mothers Against Media Addiction.
The advisory falls short of actually naming and shaming specific AI-powered toys or brands. But it comes about a week after U.S. PIRG Education Fund released its annual Trouble in Toyland report that assessed four different AI-powered toys. PIRG’s report noted that the toys gradually lost the ability to steer away from inappropriate topics over the course of longer conversations. The Kumma teddy bear, made by Chinese company FoloToy, was reportedly the worst offender. Running on OpenAI’s GPT-4o, it discussed everything from how to light matches and where to find knives, to various sexual fetishes, Futurism reported.
Shortly after the report was published, FoloToy confirmed to PIRG that it suspended sales of all of its toys, and an OpenAI spokesperson said the company “suspended this developer for violating our policies.” OpenAI is currently embroiled in numerous lawsuits alleging the chatbot encouraged discussions that led to suicide and mental breakdowns, according to The New York Times.
Ukrainian forces managed to rescue one of their own recently — a wounded soldier trapped for 33 days behind enemy lines — by sending a casket-shaped, off-road robot to navigate a perilous route dodging landmines and drone attacks to retrieve him.
After six failed rescue attempts, the 1st Medical Battalion of the Ukrainian Ground Forces managed to rescue the soldier from Russian-occupied territory in the east of the country.
The remotely operated robot, which looks like an armored casket mounted on an ATV frame and wheels, traveled a total of about 40 miles for the mission — almost 23 of them with a damaged wheel after it struck a landmine. The mission took just under six hours, according to the battalion, which shared a video of the operation on social media this week.
“We received a request from an adjacent unit to try to evacuate their soldier,” the medical battalion’s head of communications Volodymyr Koval told CBS News on Friday. “They had already made four attempts on their own, but they were unsuccessful. They turned to us because we had the appropriate capabilities.”
The MAUL ground drone, designed by the 1st Medical Battalion of the Ukrainian Ground Forces for troop extraction, is seen in a photo provided by the battalion.
Handout/Ukrainian Ground Forces
The most important of those capabilities was the robot, a MAUL ground drone originally developed by the medical battalion precisely for the purpose of extracting wounded or trapped soldiers.
“The soldier’s location was known, there was contact with him, food was being sent to him from the air — logistics were carried out by aerial drones. We began to develop a plan for his evacuation and study the route,” Koval told CBS News. “Two attempts were unsuccessful due to enemy mines and drones waiting on the ground in ambush on the roads. The seventh mission was successful, despite the fact that the drone hit an anti-personnel mine.”
The robot reached the soldier, who climbed into the personnel capsule, laid down and closed himself inside. But the rolling rescue unit then came under attack by a Russian drone on its way back toward the battle line. The soldier survived thanks to the armored capsule.
A view from a camera on board a MAUL ground drone shows an explosion in front of the vehicle during a mission to extract a wounded Ukrainian soldier from Russian-occupied territory, as shared by the Ukrainian Ground Forces 1st Medical Battalion.
Handout/Ukrainian Ground Forces 1st Medical Battalion
Military medics provided first aid and stabilized the soldier as soon as the robot reached Ukrainian-controlled territory.
“The wounded warrior is now undergoing treatment and rehabilitation. His life has been saved,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video statement Thursday evening. He lauded the troops of the 1st Medical Battalion for the operation, stressing the importance of such lifesaving missions and battlefield innovations.
“We will scale up exactly this kind of technological backbone for our army — more ground robotic systems operating at the front, more drones of all types, and increased deliveries of modern solutions that help achieve results in combat, in providing supplies for our combat units, and in evacuating our wounded warriors,” Zelenskyy said.
Koval told CBS News it was not the first and would likely not be the last ground-based drone evacuation carried out by the battalion.
“This is simply a special story of perseverance that carries an important message for the military and society. We are actively trying to implement unmanned evacuation from the battlefield, directly from the line of combat contact. This is the main task of our unit,” he said. “Evacuation is now very difficult due to the high density of fire, which is visible in the video. But every Ukrainian soldier must know that they will fight for him, that they will try to save him. This is what we wanted to show by telling this story.”
A wounded Ukrainian soldier is assisted by fellow troops after being extracted from Russian-occupied territory by the Ukrainian Ground Forces’ 1st Medical Battalion using a MAUL ground drone, in an image taken from video shared by the battalion on Nov. 4, 2025.
Handout/Ukrainian Ground Forces
The MAUL robot used in the operation was originally designed by the 1st Medical Battalion, but is now made and sold by Ukrainian defense company DevDroid, which bought the license to the design.
According to the battalion, the MAUL robot “is an evacuation platform powered by an internal combustion engine, which allows it to reach speeds of up to 70 kph (43 mph). It has a special armored capsule to protect the wounded and special metal wheels that do not contain air.”
The units are now sold by DevDroid for about $19,000 each.
Earlier this year, the Ukrainian National Guard’s 13th Khartia Brigade used a Zmiy-500 ground drone, a simpler robot that offers less protection to the person riding it, to evacuate a wounded soldier while simultaneously delivering supplies to the front line, according to a social media post by the brigade.
The drone covered more than 20 miles and completed the operation without incident, the brigade said.
Farmers look to robots for field work as immigration raids upend labor – CBS News
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Harvests are at risk in California. Part of the reason: immigration raids that have left as many as 70% of field workers too scared to show up. Itay Hod reports how some farmers are looking to technology for help.
Americans receive tens of millions of unsolicited automated calls and texts each day, often intended to dupe them into forking over personal information or money.
That’s the thrust of a new report by U.S. PIRG Education Fund, a consumer advocacy organization, which found that scam and telemarketing calls and texts have proliferated across the country, despite safeguards intended to prevent them. (Of the 9,242 phone companies that filed with the FCC as of Sept. 28, 2025, less than half have installed robocall-fighting software.)
Nationwide, Americans received an average of 2.56 billion robocalls a month from January to September. That’s up from 2.14 billion a month in 2024, and the highest level in six years, according to PIRG’s analysis of data from YouMail, one of the largest robocall-blocking companies.
Meanwhile, the volume of automated texts received by Americans has skyrocketed since 2021, when a government crackdown on robocalls led more telemarketers and scammers to shift to texts. Data from PIRG shows that the annual volume of robotexts received in 2024 was roughly 19 billion, nearly triple the approximately 7 billion robotexts received in 2021.
The predatory messages are a daily nuisance for many. About one-third of Americans say they get at least one scam phone call a day, while one-fifth say they receive one scam text every day, according to the Pew Research Center.
Types of scams
Roboscams come in many forms, as detailed in PIRG’s report. Teresa Murray, consumer watchdog director at PIRG, said they usually stem from crime rings or dedicated scam operations whose mission is to extract personal information or get some kind of financial information or actual payment from victims.
“The calls and texts are low cost and high reward,” she said in an email. “As long as some percentage keep working, the scammers will keep trying.”
Examples of some common scams include:
Impersonating IRS, Banks During tax season, bad actors pose as IRS officials or tax preparation companies. Many scammers impersonate banks and credit card companies to steal account information. Another common trap are calls and texts that incite fear about unpaid loan balances or offer dubious debt relief opportunities.
Package delivery Package delivery scams have become very common, with fraudsters posing as the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx and UPS sending out messages that there was an issue with a delivery. Included in the text is a fake link, leading victims to pay money to ensure the fake package ends up in their hands.
While some escape the scams unscathed, many don’t. According to Pew, approximately a quarter of Americans say they’ve given up personal information to scammers as a result a predatory phone call, text message or email.
How did the problem get so bad?
Scams are growing more sophisticated and easier to set up, thanks to artificial intelligence. According to PIRG, AI allows bots to send fraudulent texts to thousands of people at a time.
“The bad guys always seem to be several steps ahead of the regulators and phone companies,” Murray said.
Scammers have employed AI voice-cloning tools to trick people into thinking they are talking to a friend, family member or government official.
Up until late 2023, robocalls had declined considerably, according to Alex Quilici, founder and CEO of YouMail, who is cited in the PIRG report. Over the last two years, however, the number of automated texts and calls has increased along with the cost of related scams for victims.
The amount of money lost to phone scams rose 16% from the first half of 2024 to the first half of 2025, according to the Federal Trade Commission. On average, victims lost $3,690 to scam robocalls and $1,452 to scam texts in the first half of 2025, PIRG found.
In 2019, Congress passed the TRACED Act, which directed the Federal Communications Commission to require phone companies to implement stricter technology to regulate robocalls, including caller ID authentication. To keep track of compliance, the FCC launched a robocall mitigation database where companies are supposed to detail their efforts to fight illegal robocalls on their networks.
But those efforts have been met with mixed success. As of Sept. 28, only 44% of phone companies have completely installed the mandated software and adopted anti-robocall policies, down from 47% in 2024, PIRG found.
“You’d think that — given that it’s been more than 15 years since the first federal law to attack spam robocalls — we’d have seen more progress by now,” the PIRG report authors write,“We still don’t know whether to trust our caller ID and may worry we’ll miss an important call if we don’t answer.”
Robot vacuums have gone from novelty gadgets to everyday helpers. The best robot vacuum keeps your floors tidy without you needing to drag out a bulky upright or spend time sweeping. Today’s models map your space, avoid obstacles and even empty themselves, making them a solid addition to any home. If you’ve got pets, kids or just a busy schedule, a robot vacuum takes care of the little messes that build up fast.
Not every option costs a fortune either. While high-end models pack in powerful suction and advanced navigation, the best budget robot vacuums still do a great job with everyday cleaning. They might skip extras like self-emptying docks, but they’ll keep dust and crumbs from piling up without much effort from you.
In this guide, we’ve tested and compared the top models so you don’t have to. From premium devices packed with smart features to affordable picks that get the basics right, we’ll help you find the best robot vacuum for your needs and budget.
Table of contents
Best robot vacuums 2025
Shark
Wi-Fi connectivity: Yes | Floor type: All floor types | Features: Obstacle avoidance, home mapping, LiDAR navigation | Assistant support: Alexa/Google Assistant | Mopping capabilities: No | Self-empty: Yes | Good for pet hair: Yes
Shark’s AI robot vacuum — of which there are many models with small differences between them — ticks all of the boxes that a mid-range machine should. It offers reliable cleaning performance, its mobile app is easy to use and it produces accurate home maps. On top of that, its auto-empty base is bagless, which means you won’t have to spend money on extra bags every few months.
Setting up the Shark is as simple as taking it and its base out of the box, plugging the base in and downloading the companion mobile app to finish things up. The machine connects to Wi-Fi, allowing you to control it via the app when you’re not at home, or using Google Assistant and Alexa voice control. The first journey the Shark makes is an “Explore Run,” during which it produces a map of your home that you can then edit from the mobile app.
The Shark produced a pretty accurate floorplan of my home, and I was happy to see a “re-explore” option that I could use if the map wasn’t up to my standards. With a completed map, you’re then asked to label rooms in your home. That way, you can send the Shark to only the bedroom for more direct cleaning jobs, select “no-go” zones and more.
The first few times I ran the Shark robot, I had it clean my whole home. It boasts a respectable run time of up to 120 minutes, which will be handy for bigger homes. I was impressed by how quiet it was – or rather, how much quieter it was compared to other robo-vacs I’ve tried. You’ll have to turn up the volume on your TV if it’s cleaning in the same room, but it’ll be hard to hear when it’s sucking up debris down the hallway.
It also did a decent job maneuvering its way around the cat toys I left out on the floor. The device’s object detection feature claims it can avoid things as small as four inches, but I found that it was much better at sensing and moving around the three-foot-long cat tunnel on my floor than the many tiny mouse toys.
But even if Mr. Mouse caught the edge of the Shark’s wheels now and then, the robo-vac took it all in stride. One thing I look for when testing robot vacuums is how much attention they need from me during cleanings. The best ones are hands-free and require no extra attention at all – once they start a job, they’re smart enough to putter around your home, move around objects and return to their base when they’re finished. With Shark’s robo-vac, I never had to tend to it when it was cleaning.
Now, I did my due diligence and picked up pieces of clothing and charging cables off the ground before running the Shark (ditto for every other robot vacuum I tested), so those things were never in the way. Most companion apps will actually remind you to do this before starting a cleaning job.
This Shark machine comes with an auto-empty station, so it will dump out the contents of its dustbin after every cleaning run – and also during a job if its bin gets full before it’s done. In the latter situation, the Shark will go back to cleaning automatically after it’s freed up its bin. That’s a great feature, but I found the best thing about the base to be its bagless design. Shark’s device is unlike most other robot vacuum clean bases because you don’t have to keep buying proprietary garbage bags to outfit the interior of the base. When you want to empty the base, part of it snaps off and opens to eject debris, and it easily locks back in place when you return it. Not only is this convenient, but it also brings the lifetime cost of ownership down since you won’t be buying special bags every few months.
It’s worth noting that Shark has a couple of models that are similar to this one that just have a different color scheme, a 30- versus 60-day self-cleaning base capacity and other minor differences. The biggest feature that would impact how you use the machine is the clean base capacity: we recommend springing for the 60-day models if you want to interact as little as possible with your robo-vac.
The Roomba Combo j9+ has everything we want in a combination robotic vacuum and mop. It offers incredibly powerful suction, deep floor scrubbing and a slew of smarts to avoid obstacles (including cat and dog poop!). It’s a better vacuum than its predecessor, the Roomba Combo j7+, and it also features a new Clean Base that can automatically refill its liquid tank. More than any Roomba before it, the Combo j9+ can make your floors sparkly clean with very little intervention on your part.
While it’s expensive, the Roomba Combo j9+ certainly beats paying for a professional cleaning service. It’s also an excellent accessory for busy parents who just want to keep their floors looking tidy. It’s one of the best robotic vacuums and mops for pet owners, especially for its ability to avoid pet waste. In fact, if the j9+ ends up making a poopy mess due to cat or dog droppings, iRobot will send you a replacement unit for free. (That offer only works for the first year, and it only applies to solid waste from cats and dogs, but it’s still a helpful guarantee for pet owners afraid of the havoc that a robo-vac might wreak.)
The Roomba Combo j9+ features home mapping and can accurately map your home far faster than any previous Roomba, and you can also use the iRobot app to specify room borders. You can also create cleaning routines and label objects to help it clean exactly where you’d like. The j9+ works with smart assistants from Amazon and Google as well, so you can just shout out cleaning requests to your smart speaker. While it’s not a completely magical cleaning robot – you’ll still need to clear up your floors to help it run well – it’s certainly the closest we’ve seen yet to the ideal robotic vacuum and mop for whole-home deep cleaning. — Devindra Hardawar, Senior Reporter
Wi-Fi connectivity: Yes | Floor type: All floor types | Features: Auto mopping, obstacle avoidance, home mapping, self-emptying and self-refilling base | Assistant support: Alexa/Google Assistant | Mopping capabilities: Yes | Self-empty: Yes | Good for pet hair: Yes
It didn’t take long for Shark to make stiff competition for iRobot’s Roomba Combo j9+. The PowerDetect 2-in-1 robot vacuum and mop works slightly differently to vacuum and wash your floors, but the outcome is quite similar. Instead of lowering a mop pad when scooting over hard flooring, Shark’s machine has a mop pad that lives on its underside and will deploy it when cleaning tile, wood and other similar floors. You as the user, during the initial setup process, will indicate in your home map where you have hard floors and when you have carpet. In that sense, it’s not as automated as iRobot’s device, but it’s just one additional step that you should only have to do one time.
When I tested the PowerDetect, I found that it had a very easy setup process (just like all of the other Shark robot vacuums I’ve tried) and it took very little time to putter around the main floor of my house to get an initial home map reading. After that, you can choose if you want the machine to vacuum, mop or do both, in which case it will first vacuum the floors and then mop those freshly cleaned surfaces.
Aside from the fact that it took the robo-vac a long time to fill up its tank before mopping (a minute or two longer than I expected), it did a nice job cleaning my mix of hardwood and tile floors. I also never had to untangle it from a messy situation, be it rogue charging cables on the floor or a steep lip on the legs of my coffee table. While I spent most of my time manually dictating cleaning jobs for the PowerDetect, you can set regular cleaning schedules using the modes you prefer, or tell the machine to only clean certain rooms at specific times.
Shark didn’t pull the NeverTouch Pro Base’s name out of thin air, either. After initial setup, you really don’t have to touch the base until you need to empty or refill it in some way — empty its debris container or refill its reservoir with water and cleaning solution. Shark claims the base can hold up to 60 days worth of vacuumed debris, which is pretty standard for a machine like this, and it can hold 30 days worth of liquid refill. That means you should be able to run the PowerDetect for at least a month before you have to interact with its base — great for those who hate floor chores, or just don’t have the time to baby a new gadget in their home.
Pros
Good suction and mopping capabilities
Auto-empty and auto-refilling base for vacuum and mopping, respectively
Wi-Fi connectivity: Yes | Floor type: All floor types | Features: Obstacle avoidance, home mapping | Assistant support: Alexa/Google Assistant | Mopping capabilities: No | Self-empty: No | Good for pet hair: Yes
Dyson may have been late to the robo-vac party, but it made a remarkable machine with the 360 Vis Nav. Let’s get this out of the way at the top: this is a $1,000 robot vacuum cleaner that doesn’t have mopping abilities or a self-emptying base. Those factors alone make it less versatile (and more cost prohibitive) than our other top picks, but two of its features make it worth a shout here: its suction power and obstacle avoidance capabilities.
The Dyson 360 Vis Nav has the strongest suction power of any robot vacuum I’ve tested; it’s certainly the closest you’ll get to using one of the company’s cordless stick vacs. It sucked up an impressive amount of pet hair from my carpeted floors, and I didn’t even get a “bin full” alert after the fact. Dog hair can be really tricky to pull up from carpets, but it appears this hands-free cleaning machine can handle it all.
Obstacle avoidance is impressive as well, thanks in part to the machine’s 360-degree vision system that uses a camera and LED lights to navigate around things like furniture, and map out your home. No robo-vac I’ve used has been able to fully avoid crashing into a chair leg now and again, and the 360 Vis Nav is no exception — but it did so only a couple of times. More importantly, I never got an alert that the robot was stuck or got tangled up with a rogue charging cord and needed human assistance to get it back on track.
In many ways, the Dyson 360 Vis NAv distills a robot vacuum down to its essence: it’s really good at sucking up dirt and debris on its own, with little to no interaction with humans needed (after initial setup, of course). Some people will be willing to spend a pretty penny on that — but in a saturated market like that of robot vacuums, you can get a lot more for your money.
A self-emptying base and mopping capabilities are all but standard on most robot vacuums priced at $700 or more (and you can increasingly find one, or both of those features on cheaper machines). Personally, I think it’s particularly painful to pay $1,000 and not get a self-emptying base, at minimum. But if you’re willing to spend more on a machine that gets the basics almost perfect, the Dyson 360 Vis Nav is the machine to get.
Wi-Fi connectivity: Yes | Floor type: All floor types | Features: Obstacle avoidance | Assistant support: Alexa/Google Assistant | Mopping capabilities: No | Self-empty: No | Good for pet hair: Yes
The iRobot Roomba Vac Robot Vacuum is a good affordable option for most people thanks to its good cleaning power and easy-to-use mobile app. We won’t get too deep into it here since we have a whole guide to cheap robot vacuums with additional recommendations. But suffice to say, the Roomba Vac gives you all the essentials you’d expect from a robot vacuum, along with all of the convenience that comes with iRobot’s mobile app.
Wi-Fi connectivity: Yes | Floor type: All floor types | Features: Obstacle avoidance, home mapping, stick and hand vac accessories (included) | Assistant support: Alexa/Google Assistant | Mopping capabilities: No | Self-empty: Yes | Good for pet hair: Yes
Anker’s Eufy home brand made a first-of-its-kind machine with the E20 robot vacuum that, surprisingly, doesn’t succumb to too many of the pitfalls that a first-gen device typically does. The E20 comes as a robot vacuum with a self-emptying base, and also included in the box are the attachments to turn it into a cordless stick vacuum and a handheld vac. Just pop out the cleaning module from the robovac, snap in your attachments and get all of the conveniences of a cordless vacuum without spending (potentially) double to buy a second device.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the E20 excels as a robot vacuum. Eufy has made a number of solid robovacs over the years, and the E20 is no exception, dutifully sucking up dirt, debris and pet hair as it putters around your home. In my testing, it rarely got stuck on household objects like door mats and it has good obstacle avoidance. I also appreciate that it’s smart enough to know when its built-in dustbin is getting full, and it will return to its base to empty it periodically as it cleans.
As a cordless stick vacuum, it’s just ok. You’ll need to keep it on the highest suction mode to get the deepest clean and the build quality feels a little cheap. But its small profile will make it easy for anyone to use (and to take it out to your car for a quick clean up) and it doesn’t choke at the first sign of pet hair. A device like this could be exactly what some have been hoping for: a solid robot vacuum that can clean for you most of the time, but also lets you manually clean hard-to-reach spots when necessary.
Pros
Quickly turns into a cordless stick vacuum and a handheld vacuum
Strong performance as a robot vacuum
Self-emptying base holds a lot for its compact size
We recommend thinking first about the floors in your home: Do you have carpet throughout, or tile and hardwood floors, or a mix? Robots with stronger suction power will do a better job picking up dirt on carpets as they can get into the nooks and crannies more easily. Some machines have “max” modes as well, which ups suction power but also typically eats battery life faster than the “normal” floor cleaning mode.
Vacuum suction
Suction power is an important factor to consider. Unfortunately, there isn’t a standard power scale that all robo-vacs adhere to, so it’s difficult to compare among a bunch of devices. Some companies provide Pascal (Pa) levels and generally the higher the Pa, the stronger the vacuum cleaner will be. But other companies don’t rely on Pa and simply say their robots have X-times more suction than other robots. If you’re looking for the best vacuum for your needs, it’s helpful to pay attention to real-world testing and how well the vac can pick up fine dust, crumbs and pet hair in an environment similar to that of your home.
Wi-Fi connectivity
As we explained in our budget guide, Wi-Fi connectivity is a key feature for most robot vacuums. Some of the affordable devices aren’t Wi-Fi connected, though, so it’s best to double check before you buy cheap. Wi-Fi lets a robot vacuum cleaner do things like communicate with a mobile app, which then allows you to control the device from your phone.
Mapping features and object detection
Past a certain price threshold, you’ll find advanced perks like home mapping features, improved object detection and automatic dustbin disposal. Home mapping is exactly what it sounds like: The vacuum uses sensors to map your home’s layout as it cleans, allowing you to send it to particular rooms or avoid no-go zones where you don’t want it to roam.
Most robo-vacs have object detection, but some will be better than others at actually avoiding things like chair legs and children’s toys. High-end models even go so far as to promise obstacle avoidance to steer clear of things like pet poop that can potentially ruin your machine.
Self-empty station
Finally, for peak convenience, consider a self-empty robot vacuum that comes with a self-empty station. These are basically garbage bins attached to the machine’s docking station. At the end of each job, the robo-vac automatically empties its small dustbin into the large clean base – that means you won’t have to empty the dustbin yourself and you’ll only have to tend to the base once every few weeks.
Just keep in mind that most self-emptying bins require proprietary garbage bags – another long-term expense you’ll have to factor in. Also, any vac-and-mop robot with a water tank will not dump its dirty water into the clean base, so you’ll still have to clean up that yourself.
Robot vacuums with mopping capabilities
Mopping capabilities are much more common now in robot vacuums than they were just five years ago. Machines with this feature have a water tank either built into the robot’s chassis, the auto-empty bin or as a separate piece that you swap in for the dustbin when you want to mop your floors. It makes the robo-vac more useful if you have hard floors in your home that you like to keep squeaky clean, but it does require more work on your part.
Filling and emptying the reservoir remains a human’s job for the most part (except on the most expensive machines), as does adding cleaning solutions if the mopping robot comes with this feature to ensure it uses clean water for every cycle.
Robot vacuum maintenance tips
First and foremost, always empty your robot vacuum’s dustbin after every cleaning job. If you have a model with a self-emptying base, there’s less work for you to do yourself. If not, simply detach and empty the dustbin as soon as the robot is done cleaning. It’s also a good idea to take a dry cloth to the inside of the dustbin every once in a while to remove any small dust and dirt particles clinging to its insides.
In addition, you’ll want to regularly examine the machine’s brush roll to see if any hair has wrapped around them, or if any large debris is preventing them from working properly. Some brushes are better than others at not succumbing to tangled hair, but it’s a good idea to check your robot’s brushes regardless — both their main brush and any smaller roller brushes or corner brushes they have. These parts are often easy to pop off of the machine (because they do require replacements eventually) so we recommend removing each brush entirely, getting rid of any tangled hair or other debris attached to them and reinstalling them afterwards.
Robot vacuums also have filters that need replacing every couple of months. Check your machine’s user manual or the manufacturer’s website to see how long they recommend going in between filter replacements. Most of the time, these filters cannot be washed, so you will need to buy new ones either directly from the manufacturer or from other retailers like Amazon or Walmart.
How we test robot vacuums
We primarily test robot vacuums by using them as they are intended to be used: in a home, across different types of flooring and in the face of all sorts of messes including pet hair, spilt coffee grounds and other food debris, dust bunnies and more. We set up all robot vacuums according to their provided instructions and run multiple cleaning jobs during a testing period of at least one to two weeks per machine.
If the robot has mopping capabilities, we also test those as well on hardwood and tile flooring. For models with self-emptying bases, we rely on those built-in trash cans for all post-job cleaning, and we make sure to test the robot vacuum’s mobile app for usability and convenience. As we’re testing, we make note of things like how loud the robot and its components are, how much human attention the robot needs on a regular basis, how the robot handles large messes and big dust bunnies, if the robot gets stuck on rugs, doormats or other furniture and more.
Robot vacuum FAQs
Are robot vacuums worth it?
We tackled this question when we reviewed budget robot vacuums and the answer is yes, especially if vacuuming is one of your least favorite chores. Robots take the hard work out of cleaning your floors – just turn the thing on and watch it go. Any robot vacuum cleaner worth buying is semi-autonomous in that it will suck up dirt around your home until its battery is low and then make its way back to its charging dock. Unlike a regular vacuum, you should only have to interact with it to turn it on, empty its dustbin and untangle it if it were to get stuck somewhere.
That’s not to say robot vacuums are perfect. They’re almost always less powerful and less flexible than traditional vacuums. Since most robo-vacs are much smaller than traditional models, they often don’t have the same level of suction you’ll get in an upright machine. Plus, their dustbins are smaller, so they will need to be emptied more frequently. While Wi-Fi-connected robot vacuums give you the flexibility to start a cleaning job from anywhere using an app, targeting a small area of your home can be more complicated. Some robo-vacs have spot-cleaning features that focus the machine’s attention on a specific area, which almost – but not quite – mimics the spot-cleaning you’d be able to do yourself with a regular or cordless vacuum.
How long do robot vacuums last?
Robot vacuums can last many years, if you take care of them properly. Check out our recommendations for robot vacuum maintenance above, but in a nutshell, you should make sure that you’re emptying the machine’s bin after every job and periodically cleaning the interior of the bin and the brushes. It’s also a good idea to check the user manual to see how often your robot vacuum’s filter needs changing.
Do robot vacuums work better than handheld vacuums?
There’s no straight answer to this question. Robot vacuums offer more convenience than handheld vacuums, so for those who are looking to automate a chore, that could mean one of these devices works better for them than a standard vacuum. However, handheld vacuum cleaners often have stronger suction power, and they give the user a bit more control. It ultimately depends on how you intend to use your main vacuum cleaner and what you want to prioritize most.
How often do you have to clean a robot vacuum?
Cleaning a robot vacuum isn’t too much of a chore, but you’ll want to give it a little TLC every few weeks or so, depending on how often you’re running it and how much dirt it’s picking up. The dustbin usually needs to be emptied after each cleaning run, especially if you have pets or lots of carpet where dirt can hide. Many newer models have self-emptying docks, which means you won’t have to empty the dustbin yourself after every use, but the main bin will still need a good clean once a month or so. Also, it’s a good idea to check the side brushes and main brush for any hair tangles or debris every couple of weeks to keep things running smoothly.
What are the negatives of robot vacuums?
Robot vacuums won’t work for everyone. One of the biggest drawbacks is that they usually don’t have the same suction power as a full-sized upright vacuum or even a cordless stick vacuum, so they might struggle with deep-cleaning thick carpets. They’re also designed for floors only, so if you’re looking to clean furniture, stairs or other tricky spots, you’ll still need a traditional vacuum to do that. Plus, they can sometimes get stuck or miss spots, especially if you’ve got a lot of furniture or obstacles in the way. While their sensors help, they might still bump into things or need a little help getting out of tight spots. And while most have decent dirt detection features, they’re best for keeping things tidy rather than doing heavy-duty cleaning.
There’s a new AI companion hitting the U.S. market, and this one comes in an irresistibly cute package.
Casio’s AI-powered emotional support robot, Moflin, launched in the U.S. on Wednesday after taking Japan by storm. The small furry robot, which is roughly the size and shape of a small guinea pig, responds when touched or spoken to. It coos and squeaks, nuzzles and shakes its head. Casio says Moflin can learn the voice of its primary user, and over time will develop one of 4 million possible personalities, depending on how the user interacts with it.
Moflin may look and sound like a toy, but at $429, it costs as much as some wellness wearables like Oura Rings or Apple Watches. (A real guinea pig costs about $57 at PetSmart.) That’s no mistake—the robot was designed for wellness applications.
“Moflin is there to reassure you and to comfort you throughout any stage of life, and to be there through all the hard times,” Cecilia Lederer, manager of strategic communications and influencer engagement, said during a Wednesday launch event. “AI is really the power behind Moflin. It’s taking our interaction with it and using that information to respond back to us. And we really believe that this is the future of companionship.”
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Although Casio is perhaps best known for making watches, calculators, and digital pianos and keyboards, it also has a medical device business. President and CEO of Casio America, Yusuke Suzuki, said during a presentation that Moflin both conforms to Casio’s “creativity and contribution” ethos and “opens new possibilities in lifestyle and wellness.”
Daisuke Tekeuchi, the product manager in charge of Moflin development and marketing at Casio, said during a presentation that the inspiration for Moflin came from a Casio employee, Erina Ichikawa, who was undergoing significant life changes. Rather than solutions, what she really craved was something that could provide low maintenance comfort, he said. Thus, the Moflin was born.
“Right now, one in eight people globally struggle with mental health problems, especially anxiety, which has increased after COVID-19,” Tekeuchi said. “In this context, mental illness is no longer just a personal issue. It has become a social issue.”
Moflin was intentionally designed to communicate in sounds, rather than speech, so as to avoid any possible judgmental or negative interactions with users. The device is meant to be used with an app, called Moflife, that tracks user interactions with the synthetic creature over time and can inform a user how a Moflin is “feeling” in real-time.
Although a Moflin cannot die from neglect, like the popular 90s-era Tamagotchi toy, its personality is shaped by how a user interacts with it, according to Casio. Moflin responds positively to engagement, including petting, hugging, talking and singing, and negatively to startling or neglect, according to Casio’s website. After a period of 50 days spent with a user, the robot is meant to develop a unique set of traits that range from cheerful or energetic to affectionate or shy.
In Japan, Moflin has been incredibly popular. Casio sold some 10,000 of its Moflin robots from its launch in Japan in Nov. 2024 through May of the following year, and executives say it sold out quickly after launch. Although they admit they aren’t sure how U.S. audiences will respond to Moflin, research from the rollout in Japan shows that many customers choose Moflin for comfort.
Suzuki tells Inc. the primary target demographic for Moflin in the U.S. is young women in their 20s and 30s. He also says that the company is also casting a wider net to attract people who may not be able to have pets due to allergies or circumstances, or individuals of any age who struggle with mental health issues.
“As you can see from Moflin’s appearance, she is very cute and sweet in how she moves so I think that will give comfort,” Suzuki says.
Moflin is among the latest—but by no means the first—gadget, chatbot, or service to emerge with promises of a simulation of companionship. As far back as 1999, Sony released its immensely popular robot dog, Aibo. The robots were so popular that they were sometimes given funerals by devastated owners after they stopped working. A company called Tombot emerged in 2017 and worked with Jim Henson’s Creature Shop to design a realistic dog robot to help patients with health problems like Alzheimer’s. As recently as June, Tombot landed a $6.1 million series A round of funding. At CES in January, Japanese company Mixi debuted a new model of its AI-powered Romi robots; they have expressive faces and are meant to engage in natural conversation to combat loneliness, anxiety, and depression.
As generative AI technology has improved, people have also turned to chatbots for companionship or even therapy. Reception to these offerings, however, has been mixed. A provocative marketing campaign launched for AI pendant Friend, for example, has been widely defaced across New York City with vandals challenging the assertion that it’s healthy for people to interact with AI the way they might with fellow humans.
During Wednesday’s U.S. launch event, futurist Anatola Araba spoke, offering a gentler vision of a future in which people formed emotional connections with AI.
“Moflin represents a quiet revolution in AI human companionship and shows that robotics isn’t just for optimization or productivity, but it’s also for warmth and softness and connection and healing,” she said. “And don’t get me wrong, nothing will replace the bonds that we have with actual human beings or the depth of our relationships with our living pets. But essentially, Moflin is able to expand this spectrum of what connection can look like, and in this sense, democratize what it means, so that everyone can be connected.”
As of Wednesday, Moflin is available in the U.S., and Casio plans to roll it out to the U.K. starting in late October.
NEW YORK (AP) — Major League Baseball’s 11-man competition committee has approved use of the Automated Ball/Strike System in the major leagues in 2026.
Human umpires will still call balls and strikes, but teams can challenge two calls per game.
Challenges must be made by a pitcher, catcher or batter.
A team retains its challenge if successful.
Reviews will be shown as digital graphics on outfield videoboards.
Adding robot umps could reduce ejections, as most are related to balls and strikes.
The Automated Ball/Strike System has been tested in the minor leagues since 2019.
The challenge system allows for ABS without eliminating pitch framing, a skill for catchers.
X Square Robot, a Shenzhen-based humanoid startup, secured approximately $100 million in funding led by Alibaba Group Holding (NYSE:BABA) through Alibaba Cloud in a deal that strengthens the company’s expansion in the robotics market.
The latest investment brings the startup’s total funding to around $280 million across several financing rounds since launching in December 2023, X Square Robot Chief Operating Officer Yang Qian told CNBC earlier this week.
HongShan, formerly Sequoia Capital China, joined the funding round alongside Meituan, Legend Star, Legend Capital, and INCE Capital. Qian confirmed the company is already generating revenue from sales to educational institutions, hospitality venues, and senior care facilities.
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Venture capitalists are pouring unprecedented amounts into humanoid robotics as the integration of generative artificial intelligence promises to revolutionize human-machine interactions. X Square Robot exemplifies this trend, having completed eight funding rounds in less than two years of operation.
“Right now we need robots to operate and complete complex tasks autonomously,” Yang told CNBC. She emphasized that after decades of developing robots capable of only limited functions like grasping objects, the industry has recognized that AI is essential for expanding machine capabilities.
The company on Monday announced WALL-OSS, an end-to-end embodied foundation model, with code linked via GitHub and Hugging Face. The project focuses on vision-language-action alignment for manipulation tasks in real-world settings. Embodied AI here means models that perceive, reason, and act through physical systems such as robots.
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X Square Robot also unveiled its Quanta X2 robot, featuring 360-degree cleaning capabilities with attachable mop heads and advanced hands capable of perceiving subtle pressure changes. According to CNBC, this represents a significant step toward more human-like functionality in commercial robotics applications.
Currently, the company’s humanoid robots carry an $80,000 price tag according to research firm Humanoid Guide. Competitor Unitree offers a humanoid model for $16,000, though the advanced capabilities of that unit remain unclear. X Square Robot acknowledged it does not yet have a product ready for mass market delivery, with specific pricing determined by individual use cases, CNBC reported.
Yang expects consumer adoption to accelerate once robot prices drop to approximately $10,000, achieved primarily through hardware cost reductions. She projects this milestone is achievable within three to five years, coinciding with the X Square Robot’s prediction that “robotic butlers” will become reality within the same timeframe.
The startup plans to begin preparing for an initial public offering next year, though Yang noted the company has not determined the listing location. X Square Robot is already expanding internationally, with ongoing discussions with potential customers in Japan and Singapore.
Yang acknowledged that AI for robotics currently lags behind generative AI advancements in chatting and code generation. She estimates robotic AI technology will require at least 12 months to achieve ChatGPT 3.5-type capabilities, noting that “embodied AI” lacks clear benchmarks for measuring relative progress.
While X Square Robot utilizes Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) chips for computing functions, other operations rely on less powerful automotive chips that can be sourced domestically within China, Yang told CNBC. This hybrid approach provides the company with supply chain flexibility as it scales operations to meet growing demand across educational, hospitality, and healthcare sectors.
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Twenty-two years ago, Silicon Valley executive Henry Evans had a massive stroke that left him mute and paralyzed from the neck down. But that didn’t prevent him from becoming a leading advocate of adaptive robotic tech to help disabled people – or from writing country songs, one letter at a time. Correspondent John Blackstone talks with Evans about his upbeat attitude and unlikely pursuits.
The three-day dockworker strike that crippled East and Gulf Coast ports put a spotlight on one of America’s most important jobs: loading and unloading the billions of products — from food to cars — that keep the U.S. economy humming.
Although the work stoppage has ended for now, the labor dispute reflects how robots, artificial intelligence and other potent technologies are changing the nature of operations in the nation’s supply chains and in other industries.
“We’re really at a moment here where we’re taking about the future of work and what that looks like in America and around the world,” John Samuel, managing director with consulting firm AlixPartners, told CBS News. “And so, how do we combine the natural evolutions of technology with the right to human decency and human work?”
The tentative agreement announced on Friday between the International Longshoremen’s Association — which led last week’s strike — and the United States Maritime Alliance, bridges the divide on wages, giving dockworkers an immediate $4 per hour raise and a $24 per hour pay hike over a six-year labor contract.
Yet the pact doesn’t resolve worker concerns over automation. Read on to learn about what dockworkers do and how new technologies are changing the job.
From boxes, bails and bundles to containers
In recent decades, longshore work has been transformed by technology, a key sticking point in the labor dispute that pitted unionized workers against shipping companies and port operators.
Dockworkers handle freight by loading and unloading cargo ships that come to port. Up until the late 1950s, that meant carrying boxes, bails and bundles of goods by hand from incoming ships into storage, before loading them onto trains for transport to their final destination.
Today, cargo is stored in large, standardized containers — designed to be transported by ship, rail or truck — that dockworkers handle with cranes and other equipment.
“It’s all about operating the lifting equipment that’s required to move the containers around. A lot of it is transferring containers from ship to shore, and vice versa,” Kent Gourdin, professor and director of the global logistics and transportation program at College of Charleston, told CBS MoneyWatch. “They handle containers on the terminals where ships dock, and keep track of what container needs to go where.”
These days, the job largely involves operating machinery, as well as tracking cargo and keeping records. For example, dockworkers coordinate with trucking companies that come to port to retrieve containers and transport them to their next stop. Dockworkers are also responsible for securing cargo on ships. Containers are stacked on top of one another, and it’s dockworkers’ job to make sure the containers are latched together.
Although operating heavy machinery is less physically arduous than toting boxes, nearly all dockworkers “are out in the weather to some degree and working in an environment where they are surrounded by heavy equipment,” Gourdin said.
“Whereas back in the day it was labor-intensive, today it’s mainly about operating machinery,” Henry Sims Jr., a fourth-generation longshoreman and president of the ILA local 3,000 in New Orleans, told CBS MoneyWatch. “Now, you have to be skilled. You can’t hire someone off the street, because they wouldn’t be able to do it without killing somebody, or themselves.”
U.S. behind in automation
The 10 largest U.S. ports all use some kind of automation technology to move cargo, according to a Government Accountability Office report in March. These include automated gates, which let trucks and containers move through cargo terminals with limited worker interaction; so-called port community systems, which are digital platforms that automatically streamline logistics and supply-chain data; and technologies used in “internet-of-things” systems, such as RFID, GPS and cameras, to operate equipment and track containers.
Semi-automated terminals employ people to operate machinery that moves containers from the cargo berth — the area where a ship is moored — to the yard. Equipment used to stack containers on top of one another is fully automated.
But only three domestic ports — Long Beach Container Terminal in Long Beach, Calif., and TraPac and APM Terminal Pier 400 in Los Angeles — are fully automated.
At fully automated ports, both horizontal and vertical container movement is handled by machines. Other technologies put to use at automated ports include AI-powered sensors, so-called digital twins — or identical, digital replicas of ports — and blockchain to automate the recording of transactions and track container locations.
Automated cargo-handling equipment eliminates the need for humans on site to operate a crane, for example, according to a GAO report on port automation.
“Ports in other parts of the world are much more advanced than in the U.S., partly because the unions have been blocking the adoption of technology and automation,” global supply chain management expert Chris Tang told CBS MoneyWatch.
“If you go to modern ports in China, you hardly see any humans,” he said. “They use automated cranes, and when a ship comes in a crane picks up the containers to stack them.”
Cargo ships are seen loading and unloading containers at the fully automated terminal of Qingdao Port in Qingdao, Shandong province, China, on August 7, 2024.
Costfoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Despite the shift toward automation, Sims Jr. said human workers remain essential to the industry.
“We move things more efficiently and productively than automation does. The machines are slower, and when they break down, they can’t go back to work until we get someone out there to look at it and fix it.”
Gourdin, the professor, backed up that claim.
“Machines, I think, can do the job as well, but people are faster. I’ve been to automated terminals and it’s just slower,” he said, while acknowledging that more fully automated ports in the U.S. may be inevitable.
“An extremely difficult problem”
Given the close coordination that is required between ships, trucking companies and their customers, artificial intelligence and data analytics can play a big role in getting a container from point A to point B, logistics experts say.
“Dockworkers communicate with trucking companies to find cranes to use to retrieve their containers when they’re arriving,” Tang explained. “But sometimes a trucker will show up and they’ll need a container that’s at the bottom of the pile. This is a problem.”
That’s where artificial intelligence and data analytics come in. These technologies help dockworkers track when a given container will arrive and coordinate with trucking companies for pick-up, affecting how containers are stacked.
“It’s an extremely difficult problem to solve — to synchronize when the container and truck are coming in. This is where automation comes into play,” Tang said.
Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, said automation is well suited to the port system given how routine the nature of the work is.
“Ship comes in, they have all these containers loaded up, you take off the container and move it somewhere. Then you put it on an intermodal train or truck,” he said. “It’s the same thing over and over again. That’s something that technology can do really well because there is little variation.”
Atkinson favors cutting the amount of human labor in U.S. ports by 50% over the next 10 years, while he notes that remaining workers who survive would see their wages rise and consumers would save on shipping costs. Of course, that’s just the kind of major workforce reduction the dockworkers’ union is intent on preventing.
“If you automate a port, that means you buy something form a furniture store online and it costs less,” he said. That leads to savings for middle-class Americans.”
Megan Cerullo is a New York-based reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering small business, workplace, health care, consumer spending and personal finance topics. She regularly appears on CBS News 24/7 to discuss her reporting.
Chipotle Mexican Grill is piloting robots to help prep avocados for guacamole and build burrito bowls in two of its California eateries.
The chain on Tuesday announced it is testing two machines in its restaurants for the first time, with the company looking for feedback from employees and customers before deciding on whether to expand the technology to other Chipotle restaurants.
Dubbed Autocado, the guac helper robot can cut, core and peel avocados in 26 seconds on average, halving the time it takes human workers to make guac. Though the company’s human employees will still have to mash the fruit by hand, the technology could spare them a fair amount of toil, as Chipotle expects to use roughly 5.2 million cases of avocados — the equivalent of 129.5 million pounds of fruit — this year at locations across the U.S., Canada and Europe.
A second collaborative robot, or “cobot,” called the Augmented Makeline, will use automated technology to build bowls and salads, which make up 65% of the chain’s digital orders, according to Chipotle. The automated assembly system disperses a set amount of each ingredient in an order. Chipotle in July said it would train workers on ensuring customers received generous portions after a company probe confirmed 1 in 10 of its restaurants were too meager with their servings.
“These cobotic devices could help us build a stronger operational engine that delivers a great experience for our team members and our guests while maintaining Chipotle’s high culinary standards,” Curt Garner, Chipotle’s chief customer and technology officer, said.
A Chipotle employee uses the “Autocado,” a robot the restaurant chain is testing and that it says halves the time required to make guacamole compared with human workers.
Chipotle
The Autocado is now operating at a Chipotle location in Huntington Beach, California, while the Augmented Makeline is helping build bowls and salads for digital orders at a Chipotle restaurant in Corona del Mar, California. Almost two-thirds of Chipotle digital orders involve bowls or salads, according to the company.
Chipotle developed the robots with tech firms Vebu and Hyphen. The company operates more than 3,500 restaurants globally.
Other restaurant bots
Salad chain Sweetgreen last year began tested automating some food preparation after acquiring robotic kitchen startup Spyce.
Outside the kitchen, restaurant chains including Taco Bell are trying out voice AI technology in drive-thru locations across the country, even as McDonald’s temporarily halted its use of the technology, with the burger selling saying it yielded mixed results.
A teeny robot designed to replicate the wing dynamics of rhinoceros beetles could be well-suited for search-and-rescue missions, as well as spying on real insects, according to researchers at Switzerland’s Institute of Technology Lausanne and South Korea’s Konkuk University.
Roughly twice the size of a beetle and weighing slightly more than a CD (18 grams), the microrobot’s rapid, insectlike movements draw from research into how beetles deploy their wings. Unlike birds and bats, which rely on “well-developed pectoral and wing muscles” to outstretch their wings, the researchers observed that “rhinoceros beetles can effortlessly deploy their hindwings without necessitating muscular activity,” they wrote in a paper published in Nature this week. To test their observations, they made the robot.
There was already plenty of footage of insect-inspired robots online — some extremely tiny, some like a swarm of ants, and others reminiscent of cicadas. However, the researchers say their robotic critter is unique in how it folds up its wings at rest and then passively deploys them to take flight and remain in the air. The researchers filmed the robot while airborne and slowed the footage (to 20% of the actual speed) to show off its elegant, rhythmic flaps.
“Our robot with foldable wings can be used for search and rescue missions in confined spaces,” lead researcher and postdoctoral scientist Hoang-Vu Phan told Tech Xplore, citing the robot’s small stature. “When flight is not possible, the robot can land or perch on any surface, and then switch to other locomotion modes such as crawling,” he explained. The folding function could make its wings less susceptible to damage.
Phan also said the robot could be disguised to help biologists spy on real insects in forests — a use “for which conventional rotary-wing drones are not applicable,” he said. The robot might even make a decent engineering toy for kids, Phan suggested, explaining that the robot’s “low-flapping frequency is very safe and human-friendly.” That’s not unlike actual rhinoceros beetles, which neither bite nor sting, despite their somewhat intimidating appearance.
SALEM — Collins Middle School seventh-grade robotics students Amelia Meegan and Sam Vietzke captured the Middle School Project Lead the Way Division at the One8 Applied Learning Showcase Friday, May 10, at the Track at New Balance.
The feat was especially meaningful since the school’s entry into the One8 Showcase, spearheaded by science educator/Robotics Club advisor Gregg Beach, was its first-ever appearance.
“I just thought it was important that we showed up,” said Beach in a news release. “The process of building, doing the work and showing up was reward enough. I’m not surprised (that we won) because we have so many great students and projects in this school.”
The One8 Showcase, which included more than 300 schools, is a year-end student STEM showcase for Project Lead The Way, OpenSciEd, PBLWorks, and ST Math schools in Massachusetts for students in grades 5-12. Students shared their applied learning projects with industry professionals and had an opportunity to present to an audience.
Student teams each had a table and display board on which they described their projects as industry professionals circulated and engaged students, offering verbal and written feedback.
The Salem robotics students received commemorative One8 Showcase jackets as well as an invitation to the Philips Research Institute in Cambridge for a field trip.
Amelia and Sam presented their robot MrukBot 9000, named after their beloved assistant principal Shamus Mruk, which was capable of 360 turns and was equipped with a bluetooth speaker, comically playing loops of Mruk’s favorite lines:
– “What are you doing here?”
– “Are you supposed to be here?”
– “Where’s your pass?”
– “Get back to class!”
According to Sam, Amelia builds while he codes. “It took me about two days to code,” he said. “We know there were going to be other robots, but we were actually one of very few.”
Success at the One8 Showcase has inspired the two to keep tweaking the MrukBot 9000.
“Our next step is to put a camera on it so we can watch a live feed, basically making it a Roomba,” said Amelia.
“We want to install an AI vision sensor,” Sam added, something Beach plans to introduce to his robotics class and the after-school Robotics Club.
Beach noted that Amelia and Sam are also both drama students, which was key to their presentation.
Seventh-grader Edward Castillo Mesa also attended the One8 Showcase to present his robot, EndGame Chupacabra 3.1, named after the mythical Mexican creature, which he built to battle other robots.
His robot earned “terrific” feedback from several industry professionals in attendance and he has designs on a new project for the 2025 One8 Showcase: A robot to locate lost hikers.
“I want to build something that can actually help people,” he said.
LUGANO, SWITZERLAND – As part of its mission to make robotics fun and accessible for all, Arduino is launching a brand-new programmable robot – the Arduino Alvik. Catering to teachers, students, programmers and innovators alike, this versatile and robust platform provides boundless opportunities for hands-on learning and creativity.
Alvik stands out for its unprecedented ease of programming. Its integration of MicroPython – a simple-to-read programming language interpreter optimized for microcontrollers – means users can quickly bring their ideas to life from just a single line of code. Once the basics are mastered, they can then progress to more complex robotics projects that are tailored to their skill level and interests.
Alvik is designed to empower young learners and lower the entry barrier to the fascinating world of robotics. With the upcoming integration of block-based programming, it is positioned to support primary school education, making coding accessible and engaging for younger learners.
The robot’s compact and robust design hosts uncompromising functionality. Powered by the trusted Arduino Nano ESP32, the Alvikboasts an impressive array of high-quality sensorsand motion control systems that enable it to perceive and interact with its surroundings. With the additional sensor ports and connectors, these integrated sensors allow users to transform Alvik into a rover, bulldozer, delivery robot, or automated inspection robot for a variety of applications – both in classroom learning and DIY projects. And that’s just the start of the creative learning experience!
Fabio Violante, CEO of Arduino, shares his vision: “Alvik isn’t just a robot; it’s a bridge to advanced robotics. It’s meticulously crafted to ensure that anyone interested in robotics can start with the basics and advance to complex projects. We asked our engineers to make no compromises on technology, and they delivered a platform that will surprise many different categories of users. We envision and encourage any sort of hacks for this open robot.”
Key highlights of the Arduino Alvik include:
Start programming in no time: Alvik streamlines the learning curve in robotics with a comprehensive programming suite that includes MicroPython and the Arduino language. And Alvik soon plans to introduce block-based coding, further enhancing accessibility for younger students.
Unlock robotics potential with multiple integrated sensors: Alvik’s Time of Flight matrix distance sensors, RGB color and line-following array sensors, along with its six-axis gyroscope and accelerometer, allow users to tackle many innovative, real-world projects. From obstacle avoidance to smart warehouse automation, the possibilities are endless!
Enjoy advanced motor control: Alvik leverages motors with encoders, advanced motor drivers, and a dedicated MCU.
Customize and expand with Alvik’s extension capabilities: Alvik comes equipped with LEGO® Technic™ connectors, allowing users to personalize the robot and expand its capabilities. Additionally, it features M3 screw connectors for custom 3D or laser-cut designs.
Amplify Alvik’s flexibility for dynamic movement: The Servo, I2C Grove, and I2C Qwiic connectors allow users to expand Alvik’s potential and take robotics projects to a whole new level. Add motors for controlling movement and robotic arms, or integrate extra sensors for data collection and analysis – the choice is yours.
CSTA and NGSS-aligned curriculum for education: Teachers, students and self-learners have access to a free, easy-to-follow Explore Robotics and MicroPython course developed by Arduino to help them understand the core principles of robotics and MicroPython through project-based learning concepts.
For more information about this innovative new robot, visit the Alvik store page now.
About Arduino
Arduino is the leading open-source hardware and software company in the world. Born to provide an easy-to-use platform for anyone making interactive projects, Arduino has reached a growing community and adapted to new needs and challenges, branching out into products for IoT, wearables, 3D printing, and embedded environments. As of today, the Arduino community includes over 33 million active users.
With Arduino Education, Arduino supports educational institutions and educators around the world in bringing STEAM subjects to life in the classroom with hands-on kits and digital content that make learning engaging, for students at any age and stage.
eSchool Media staff cover education technology in all its aspects–from legislation and litigation, to best practices, to lessons learned and new products. First published in March of 1998 as a monthly print and digital newspaper, eSchool Media provides the news and information necessary to help K-20 decision-makers successfully use technology and innovation to transform schools and colleges and achieve their educational goals.
The past decade has seen humanoid robot makers trying to make their creations more and more like humans. But here in 2024, we seem to be witnessing an odd shift in the dexterity of our bipedal robo-dreams. Put bluntly, robotics companies aren’t afraid of getting weird with the contortions of their latest offerings.
Warning! Microsoft Wants ChatGPT to Control Robots Next
China-based Unitree Robotics released a new video on Monday, available on YouTube, showing off the new G1 which retails for $16,000. It’s just the latest demonstration of a robot maneuvering in entirely un-human ways to accomplish its goals, as you can see in the GIF above.
The video includes lots of odd movements, showing how the robot can get up off the ground or greet people by pulling a sort of Exorcist move with its torso, rotating 180 degrees. And it all looks strikingly similar to the new version of Boston Dynamics’ Atlas, which has a novel way of getting on its feet.
There’s also a demonstration of the Unitree robot getting kicked and pushed, presumably to show how well it can balance, even when it meets resistance. But we’d be lying if we said it didn’t make us uncomfortable. These are, after all, robots made to look like humans. And watching wanton cruelty, even against a machine that doesn’t have feelings, sets off something deep in our brain that says they shouldn’t be doing that.
Unitree Introducing | Unitree G1 Humanoid Agent | AI Avatar | Price from $16K
Again, these contortions all seem a bit new. A decade ago, Gizmodo attended the DARPA Robotics Challenge in Southern California, where teams largely competed by trying to make their robots as much like humans as possible. Companies like Boston Dynamics released new videos each year showing its robots walking, running, and then eventually doing backflips, all in the same way that talented humans might do it.
But we seem to be on the cusp of a new era when it comes to robotics. Most robot makers have achieved basic human-style walking and running. The new frontier is taking that form factor and turning them into super-humans, whether by performing gymnastics or applying logic and reason to the world in front of them.
We’re still a long way from AGI that’ll help robots get chores done, but if we continue on this trajectory, it seems unlikely robots will be doing the mundane tasks that humans don’t want to do. We allowed AI to skip all the boring stuff and jump right ahead to making music and writing poetry. It seems silly to think we’re building an army of butlers to serve humanity with that technology. No, we’re probably going to be letting the robots paint beautiful landscapes while we’re all stuck at our desks filling out Excel spreadsheets if the recent past is any guide.
