Picture a future where you are not just using AI in the digital world, but have humanoid robots around you who do almost everything for you. It seems that tech companies are working towards making such a vision a reality. Now, OpenAI is looking to expand its robotics division, likely focusing on humanoid robots. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced on X that the AI startup was looking to hire engineers for this division, which is led by Indian-origin techie, Aditya Ramesh.
Altman claimed that the company wanted to manufacture robots that can be “useful for society.” The OpenAI chief claimed that AI should not just be limited to helping humans in the digital world. He explained, “AI should be able to help people in the physical world.”
This move comes at a time when rivals, including Elon Musk-led Tesla’s Optimus and other robots, have shown rapid progress. Musk has previously claimed that robots may take over all jobs in the future, and humans can then be free to do things like growing vegetables.
OpenAI wants robots to do whatever you need
It seems that OpenAI may share a similar vision to Elon Musk, at least in the long term. Sam Altman wrote that the company had two broad goals for its robotics division. He said, “In the short term, we are focused on robots to support skilled workers to build our future infrastructure.” Sam added, “In the long term, we imagine everyone having a personal robot doing anything they need.”
To do this, OpenAI has started hiring for new staff. Sam Altman says that the company is looking for “exceptional full-stack hardware, ops, systems, and ML engineers.” At the time of writing, the OpenAI website had 11 roles for the robotics team.
These engineers will join the company’s world simulation research programme, which is led by Aditya Ramesh. Ramesh has previously worked on various OpenAI projects including the video generator Sora, and image generator DALL-E.
Replying to Altman’s post, Ramesh said OpenAI had created a “really unique environment” to execute on the scope and ambitions of the programme.
Keep in mind that OpenAI is far from the only company that is looking to build humanoid robots. Apart from Tesla, China has seen a bunch of different companies make rapid progress with humanoids. Unitree, in particular, has shown its robots do various tasks, from running almost as fast as Olympic medallist Usain Bolt, to even walking down the ramp in a Seoul fashion show.
On the other hand, humanoid robots like Neo have also been released, that are targeted at doing household chores for humans.