"Some of these AI-powered robots may be humanoids, others may not - form is less important than functionality. If a robot has the physical capability to do a task, it could have the flexible knowledge. Plumbing, electrical, welding, roofing, fixing cars, making meals - there really isn't much of a limit. Think about it a bit like C-3PO and R2-D2, but without the snarky personalities."
"Big Tech giants and startups are gathering gobs of real-world data to train their AI models. Others are employing "world models," which are trained on simulated physical world data. They're cheaper - relying on an understanding of things like gravity - and have been championed by Yann LeCun, the former chief AI scientist at Meta who recently formed a new company called AMI Labs."
"Follow the money: Toronto-based Waabi last week raised up to $1 billion in what could be the largest funding ever for a Canadian startup, with an initial focus on robo-taxis and self-driving trucks. "It's obvious that the physical AI moment is here," Waabi founder and CEO Raquel Urtasun tells Axios' Joann Muller. "Autonomy is the first application where scale is going to happen. Pittsburgh-based Skild AI just raised around $1.4 billion at a $14 billion valuation. Its motto: "Any robot. Any task. One brain.""
Software "brains" that model physics and real-world conditions enable robots to adapt to changing environments and perform diverse tasks. Robot form is secondary to functional capability; humanoid and non-humanoid platforms could undertake plumbing, electrical, welding, roofing, auto repair, and food preparation. Development strategies differ: some teams collect large-scale real-world datasets while others train simulated "world models" that encode physical laws like gravity. Major startups and established companies are attracting large funding rounds to scale autonomy for applications such as robo-taxis, trucking, and industrial work. The pace and extent of blue-collar job displacement from physical AI remain uncertain.
Read at Axios
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