Companies like OpenAI and Midjourney build chatbots, image generators and other artificial intelligence tools that operate in the digital world. Now, a start-up founded by three former OpenAI researchers is using the technology development methods behind chatbots to build A.I. technology that can navigate the physical world. Covariant, a robotics company headquartered in Emeryville, Calif., is creating ways for robots to pick up, move and sort items as they are shuttled through warehouses and distribution centers. Its goal is to help robots gain an understanding of what is going on around them and decide what they should do next. The technology also gives robots a broad understanding of the English language, letting people chat with them as if they were chatting with ChatGPT. The technology, still under development, is not perfect. But it is a clear sign that the artificial intelligence systems that drive online chatbots and image generators will also power machines in warehouses, on roadways and in homes. Like chatbots and image generators, this robotics technology learns its skills by analyzing enormous amounts of digital data. That means engineers can improve the technology by feeding it more and more data. Covariant, backed by $222 million in funding, does not build robots. It builds the software that powers robots. The company aims to deploy its new technology with warehouse robots, providing a road map for others to do much the same in manufacturing plants and perhaps even on roadways with driverless cars. The A.I. systems that drive chatbots and image generators are called neural networks, named for the web of neurons in the brain. By pinpointing patterns in vast amounts of data, these systems can learn to recognize words, sounds and images — or even generate them on their own. This is how OpenAI built ChatGPT, giving it the power to instantly answer questions, write term papers and generate computer programs. It learned these skills from text culled from across the internet.
Full feature : Covariant, a robotics start-up, is designing technology that lets robots learn skills much like chatbots do.
