While there is a lot of work to do, Tedrake says all of the evidence so far suggests that the approaches used to LLMs also work for robots. “I think it’s changing everything,” he says.
Gauging progress in robotics has become more challenging of late, of course, with videoclips showing commercial humanoids performing complex chores, like loading refrigerators or taking out the trash with seeming ease. YouTube clips can be deceptive, though, and humanoid robots tend to be either teleoperated, carefully programmed in advance, or trained to do a single task in very controlled conditions.
The new Atlas work is a big sign that robots are starting to experience the kind of equivalent advances in robotics that eventually led to the general language models that gave us ChatGPT in the field of generative AI. Eventually, such progress could give us robots that are able to operate in a wide range of messy environments with ease and are able to rapidly learn new skills—from welding pipes to making espressos—without extensive retraining.
“It’s definitely a step forward,” says Ken Goldberg, a roboticist at UC Berkeley who receives some funding from TRI but was not involved with the Atlas work. “The coordination of legs and arms is a big deal.”
Goldberg says, however, that the idea of emergent robot behavior should be treated carefully. Just as the surprising abilities of large language models can sometimes be traced to examples included in their training data, he says that robots may demonstrate skills that seem more novel than they really are. He adds that it is helpful to know details about how often a robot succeeds and in what ways it fails during experiments. TRI has previously been transparent with the work it’s done on LBMs and may well release more data on the new model.
Whether simple scaling up the data used to train robot models will unlock ever-more emergent behavior remains an open question. At a debate held in May at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Atlanta, Goldberg and others cautioned that engineering methods will also play an important role going forward.
Tedrake, for one, is convinced that robotics is nearing an inflection point—one that will enable more real-world use of humanoids and other robots. “I think we need to put these robots out of the world and start doing real work,” he says.
What do you think of Atlas’ new skills? And do you think that we are headed for a ChatGPT-style breakthrough in robotics? Let me know your thoughts on ailab@wired.com.
This is an edition of Will Knight’s AI Lab newsletter. Read previous newsletters here.
Source link
#Robot #Single #Model #Master #Humanlike #Movements

![‘Ninja Scroll’ Is Slashing Back to Theaters in October
The 1993 samurai anime film Ninja Scroll is coming back with a limited theatrical run this fall. Per IGN, Iconic Events and AMC are teaming for a re-release on October 4, 5, and 7. (At time of writing, it’s exclusively locked to North America.) The remastered version will play its original 35mm negatives in 4K using a process that “repairs any damage and [performs] color correction to create an archival-quality digital master of the film.” Directed and written by Yoshiaki Kawajiri and created by Animate Film, Ninja Scroll tells the story of mercenary swordsman Kibagamei Jubei. Set in feudal Japan, Jubei is tasked with killing the Eight Devils of Kimon, supernatural ninjas aiming to take over the Tokugawa shogunate. Praised for its animation and action, the film was highly regarded when it came out and is considered a great contributor (alongside Akira and Ghost in the Shell) to adult anime’s popularity in the West. (That’s at least true for the Wachowskis, who cited the film as a big influence on The Matrix, and later brought on Kawajiri to direct and write two segments of The Animatrix.) [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrfUIekIpEA[/embed] In the years since Ninja Scroll’s release, it’s become a bit of a franchise unto itself: it had a standalone sequel series in 2003 and a 12-issue miniseries in 2006 by J. Torres and Michael Chang Ting Yu.
Animation studio Madhouse announced a sequel in 2008 helmed by Kawajiri that stalled out, and that same year saw Warner Bros. announce a live-action movie that also didn’t go anywhere. (Oh, noooooo, that’s sooooooo sad.) Tickets for the Ninja Scroll re-release will go on sale in the coming weeks. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. #Ninja #Scroll #Slashing #Theaters #OctoberNinja Scroll,Yoshiaki Kawajiri ‘Ninja Scroll’ Is Slashing Back to Theaters in October
The 1993 samurai anime film Ninja Scroll is coming back with a limited theatrical run this fall. Per IGN, Iconic Events and AMC are teaming for a re-release on October 4, 5, and 7. (At time of writing, it’s exclusively locked to North America.) The remastered version will play its original 35mm negatives in 4K using a process that “repairs any damage and [performs] color correction to create an archival-quality digital master of the film.” Directed and written by Yoshiaki Kawajiri and created by Animate Film, Ninja Scroll tells the story of mercenary swordsman Kibagamei Jubei. Set in feudal Japan, Jubei is tasked with killing the Eight Devils of Kimon, supernatural ninjas aiming to take over the Tokugawa shogunate. Praised for its animation and action, the film was highly regarded when it came out and is considered a great contributor (alongside Akira and Ghost in the Shell) to adult anime’s popularity in the West. (That’s at least true for the Wachowskis, who cited the film as a big influence on The Matrix, and later brought on Kawajiri to direct and write two segments of The Animatrix.) [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrfUIekIpEA[/embed] In the years since Ninja Scroll’s release, it’s become a bit of a franchise unto itself: it had a standalone sequel series in 2003 and a 12-issue miniseries in 2006 by J. Torres and Michael Chang Ting Yu.
Animation studio Madhouse announced a sequel in 2008 helmed by Kawajiri that stalled out, and that same year saw Warner Bros. announce a live-action movie that also didn’t go anywhere. (Oh, noooooo, that’s sooooooo sad.) Tickets for the Ninja Scroll re-release will go on sale in the coming weeks. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. #Ninja #Scroll #Slashing #Theaters #OctoberNinja Scroll,Yoshiaki Kawajiri](https://gizmodo.com/app/uploads/2026/06/ninja-scroll-hed-1280x853.jpg)
Post Comment