Figure has shown the first results of its work with OpenAI to improve the capabilities of humanoid robotics. In a video published recently, the Figure 01 bot is shown chatting in real-time.
The growth in the development shown in Figure is nothing short of remarkable. Brett Adcock, an entrepreneur, only emerged from stealth last year after assembling a team of key players from Boston Dynamics, Tesla, Google DeepMind, and Archer Aviation to “create the world’s first commercially viable general purpose humanoid robot.”
By October, Figure 01 could stand independently and do basic activities. By the turn of the year, the robot had watch-and-learn skills and was ready to join the BMW workforce in mid-January.
Adcock said in an X post that Figure 01’s integrated cameras transfer data to a vast vision-language model developed by OpenAI and that Figure’s neural networks “take images in at 10 Hz through cameras on the robot.” OpenAI is also responsible for the ability to hear spoken words, and Figure’s neural net converts all of this information into “fast, low-level, dexterous robot actions.”
He confirmed that the robot was not teleoperated throughout the demonstration and that the video was captured at actual speed. Overall, it is an accomplishment for a company that has been in existence for less than two weeks. “Our goal is to train a world model to operate humanoid robots at the billion-unit level,” Adcock stated.
