Hello and welcome to the August special edition of Eye on A.I.
The marriage of humanoid robots and artificial intelligence is a source of wonder and worries: Wonder at the prospect of the sci-fi-like machines and worries about the potential job losses (or worse).
Itโs also an idea that has captivated some of the tech industryโs most influential minds, from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who hosts an annual robotics conference, to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, whose company is developing a robot called Optimus that Musk claims could one day outnumber humans.
Weโre still a long way from Muskโs prediction. But this week, a new droid made its public debut, taking us one step closer to the robotic age.
As the new robot is named, Apollo is roughly human-sized, standing 5 foot 8 inches tall and weighing 160 poundsโand itโs designed to feel approachable and human-like. Its creator, Austin-based Apptronik, is positioning Apollo as a versatile robot suited for working alongside humans (the company hopes interacting with Apollo will be akin to interacting with a friendly coworker) and taking over for them in dangerous work environments where humans would rather not be.
While initially focused on case and tote handling solutionsโpicking up stuff and moving itโin the logistics and manufacturing industries, Apollo is more broadly an all-purpose robotics platform available for developers to configure for different industries, such as construction, oil and gas, electronics production, elder care, retail, and home delivery. Research and development for Apollo came from the DARPA Robotics Challenge, where two of the companyโs cofounders worked with NASA Johnson Space Center on the Calgary robot. And then, in 2016, the company spun out of the University of Texas at Austinโs Human-Centered Robotics Lab to become Apptronik.
โOver the past seven years as a company, weโve built over 13 unique iterations of different types of mobile robots, eight…