AIC: Humanoid Robotics – Creating General-Purpose Functional Intelligence

Research in humanoid robotics strives to create versatile machines endowed with functional intelligence. These machines should be able to reason and act in the physical world and perform any task that a human might reasonably be expected to carry out. The era of humanoid robots acting in the real world as general-purpose machines with functional intelligence has arrived. Substantial advances have been made, positioning AI-powered humanoid robotics as a cornerstone of both robotics research and our understanding of intelligence. In this talk, I will present progress towards 24/7 humanoid robots that are rapidly becoming accessible to everyone to empower and assist people. I will specifically focus on engineering holistic systems with architectures that integrate semantic representations and sensorimotor control to allow learning from human and natural interaction, and performing complex manipulation tasks. I will conclude with a discussion of the major challenges of an AI-powered humanoid robotics and the transformative impact humanoid robotics will have in the future as these systems transition from laboratories to homes and workplaces in the coming years.