CES seeks robots that are neither too human nor too machine-like – 01/11/2024 – Tech

With big, expressive eyes, elfin ears and an adorable babble, Miroka and Miroki could be cartoon characters. But behind their friendly appearance, these robots are full of sensors and engineering, designed to carry out heavy assistance tasks in hospitals and hotels.

“Why live with ugly machines?” asks Jerome Monceaux, director of the French startup Enchanted Tools, who was at the presentation of both devices at the CES technology fair in Las Vegas, in the United States.

“I could take their heads or their colors, but I’m not sure you’d want to share your daily life with them,” he says.

Several startups are working on robots that look familiar and help humans without making them feel uncomfortable or unsafe.

Amazon is currently testing Agility’s Digit, a two-legged android that wouldn’t look out of place in the “Star Wars” universe, to transport plastic buckets in its warehouses.

French company Enchanted Tools also opted for robots that work in teams, designed to assist with repetitive tasks. The company expects to produce 100,000 robots over the next 10 years.

Take up jobs

Each edition of CES, the great annual high-technology event, brings its companion robots and androids, but they have not gained much space in homes and companies.

At the same time, “labor shortages have been the number one problem since Covid (pandemic) across different industries. Today we have about 18 million vacancies,” said Joe Lui, director of robotics at Accenture.

While some tasks have adapted to mechanical arms and autonomous wheelbarrows, many others require language, mobility, and understanding of the environment and therefore humans. Or humanoids equipped with artificial intelligence (AI), Lui quickly explains, who believes that this technology can bring robots into everyday life.

“Humanoids will really be like co-workers in the coming years and natural language interfaces like ChatGPT will prevail,” said Chris Nielsen of Levatas, a US company that integrated generative AI software into Spot, a quadruped robot from Boston Dynamics.

Thanks to generative AI, robots are less dependent on prior instructions. But “don’t worry, robots like us are designed to help humans improve their lives,” robot Moxie told AFP.

The size of a teddy bear and equipped with generative AI, Moxie is able to interact with children, tell stories, teach math lessons and perform dance moves with both arms.

“Moxie is not here to replace anyone. Moxie is a mentor, a tutor and a friend,” said Daniel Thorpe, from Empowered, the company that created the robot.

“They cause fear”

Bipedal, mobile and autonomous humanoids still have a long way to go before they leave the laboratory.

But some of its precursors at least managed to leave CES, such as Moxie and Aura, a very anthropomorphic robot (simulating a human shape) that entertains customers at The Sphere, a new space for shows in Las Vegas.

“I get a lot of questions, like how old are you, what is the meaning of life, who is going to win the Super Bowl…”, Aura tells the curious spectators, adding jokes, exaggerated laughter and eye and shoulder movements.

For Monceaux, very anthropomorphic robots “create confusion between our humanity and its robotic nature, and cause fear.”

At CES, Adam, a robot barista from Richtech Robotics, serves coffee to delighted visitors and cracks jokes, thanks to generative AI. But to supply his machine with coffee and milk, he still needs humans.