When robots have AI brains, has the era of humanoid robots come?

After the simple and clear password is given, the robot begins to move boxes, carry small balls, and walk on various terrains...... These robots, covered in chips and sensors, have one thing in common: they are futuristic robots that mimic the appearance and behavior of humans.

A few days ago, the humanoid robot competition and future industry unveiling hosted by the Chinese Humanoid Robot 100 Association was held in Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone, with a total of 116 projects and teams participating, covering the four major sections of humanoid robots, including "core foundation", "key products", "public support" and "typical applications", including tactile sensors, robotic arms and dexterous hands, and typical applications for industrial manufacturing. Representative enterprises, experts and scholars, and scientific research teams from the field of domestic humanoid robots brought cutting-edge technical solutions and R&D results to the show.

At the forum held during the competition, Yao Chizhi, winner of the Turing Award and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, pointed out the importance of humanoid robots: "To a certain extent, the research and development of humanoid robots can guide the cutting-edge research direction of artificial intelligence, and can promote the development of artificial intelligence research in multimodality to form a unified standard, and then 'integrate it', so that the brain (artificial intelligence) and the body (robot) can be combined." In various human-computer interaction 'windows', there are many specific scenarios and goals to promote the research of artificial intelligence. ”

This year's government work report proposed "artificial intelligence +" for the first time, which has also become the key word for almost every expert at the forum. They believe that this means that artificial intelligence will be more widely applied in various fields, and deeply integrated with traditional industries to achieve high-quality development. Humanoid robots may be a breakthrough in "artificial intelligence +".

When artificial intelligence is combined with humanoid robots

Autonomous driving, smart home, education and training, retail e-commerce, industrial manufacturing...... When artificial intelligence is combined with humanoid robots, the answer may be "1+1>2".

"The latest developments are the result of significant advances in deep learning technology. With the deepening of deep learning, reinforcement learning, AI large model theory and technology research, artificial intelligence technology has entered a stage of rapid development. At this stage, significant progress has been made through the application of technologies such as deep learning and reinforcement learning, such as visual recognition, natural language interaction, translation, and complex decision-making, which were previously difficult to handle. Wang Shuo, a researcher at the National Key Laboratory of Multimodal Artificial Intelligence Systems at the Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and head of the Intelligent Robot System Research Department, told the reporter of China Youth Daily and China Youth Network.

According to Wang Shuo, at present, the work on artificial intelligence is mostly focused on deep neural networks. In the past, people mainly wrote on paper, but now a large number of words, books, and knowledge have been digitalized to form a wealth of data, which lays the foundation for the training of deep neural networks. Combined with neural network algorithms and a lot of computing power, it is possible to "get some unexpected results".

Xi Ning, director of the Institute of Emerging Technologies at the University of Hong Kong, also mentioned that the rapid development of new technologies such as artificial intelligence models has provided researchers with new opportunities to solve the challenges and problems faced in the development of humanoid robots.

"When we talk to a machine, it always seems that the machine is clumsy, and when we say 'east', it responds 'west'. But now, especially with technologies like AI models, the conversational experience we have with machines has changed dramatically. The machine seems to have gotten smarter, and it can give clear and relatively accurate answers to many questions. Wang Shuo said.

He gave an example: in the early days of human-computer dialogue, only a dozen words could be exchanged at a time. But now, even if an entire article is handed over to a machine, it can quickly generate summaries, distill highlights, and even generate corresponding data tables.

"From the perspective of this period of development, these developments have not only had a positive impact on our application practice, but also greatly promoted the relevant academic research work. So, we can see that the whole field, both at the applied level and at the academic level, is very encouraged by these advances. Wang Shuo said with emotion.

Humanoid robots are showing endless possibilities

At the humanoid robot competition, although many of the robot's movements have obvious "mechanical attributes", the young people participating in the competition are still full of confidence. They showed the results of their long-term research, and applied robots in aerospace, earthquake relief and other fields.

"I grew up reading science fiction and wanted robots and humans to live together in our society. Wei Wandi, a student from Zhejiang University, told the reporter of China Youth Daily and China Youth Network about her original intention to engage in the research and development of humanoid robots, "All kinds of robotic arms and mechanical dogs are also very good, but being a humanoid robot is more 'energetic' for me."

Wei Wandi's team, the robot brought this time is called "Wukong", which is a general-purpose robot in all scenes. The team wanted it to be able to adapt to different scenarios and different types of work, so they made a special design in terms of the stability of the robot. During the defense, the team also invited the judges of the competition to "kick" in person to demonstrate "Wukong's" ability to recover quickly in the face of external interference.

Wang Qizhou, a representative from Unitree Technology, said: "Artificial intelligence allows robots to enter our industry applications and our lives faster, and has greater possibilities. We will also seize this opportunity. ”

Compared with quadruped robots, Wang Qizhou mentioned that humanoid robots will have a larger application space and a more human-friendly appearance. At the same time, he pointed out that quadruped robots have higher stability and will have better applications in special scenarios such as the wild, "robots will also become an ecology in the future, and different robots have different advantages and do different things."

At present, Wang Qizhou's team is working hard to make robots more stable and intelligent, "which is also what the industry is doing."

In September 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice to organize the unveiling of future industrial innovation tasks in 2023, and listed humanoid robots as one of the four important directions of innovation and development.

"Last year was a year of rapid development of large models, and this year may be the first year of AI large model applications. Humanoid robots must be one of the best carriers. Liu Cong, vice president of iFLYTEK, said.

In his words, this task is called "1+N", which is not only the core base of "1", but also combined with the team's scenarios in education, medical care, office and other industries to form industrial applications.

At the end of January this year, the latest version of the Spark model was released. For the next release, the team's goal is to "benchmark GPT-4's current level."

Liu Yong, director of the North China Vehicle Research Institute, focuses on three application scenarios of humanoid robots, namely border and coastal defense, "man-machine black" (man-machine isolation, machine substitution, and black light factory) for dangerous operations, and intelligent manufacturing. He said that there are still some people who are still engaged in jobs related to dangerous industries, and he hopes that humanoid robots empowered by artificial intelligence can replace these people from dangerous operations.

At the same time, he mentioned that humanoid robots still face many problems, such as high cost and slow iteration, "hardware engineers seem to be busy all the time, software engineers and algorithm engineers seem to have been waiting". Liu Yong said that now the use of "large language model + visual language model + robot" is "a lot of work" to be done to truly realize embodied intelligence.

Technological innovation needs to be accompanied by the strengthening of ethical norms

Wang Shuo also told a reporter from China Youth Daily that artificial intelligence technology "is bringing great changes to scientific research and social life."

He cites biology as an example: in the past, the study of protein structure mainly relied on the observation and analysis of biologists under the electron microscope. However, there are many different types of protein structures, and different structures have different roles, and the workload of their analysis is enormous. Now, combined with the methods of artificial intelligence, researchers can estimate the function of proteins of different structures and suggest several combinations that are ideal for testing in these combinations. This will undoubtedly greatly accelerate the efficiency of new drug research and development.

"With the continuous advancement of technology and the continuous expansion of application scenarios, we have reason to believe that artificial intelligence will play a greater role in the future. Wang Shuo said.

On the day of the forum, many experts also mentioned the safety of humanoid robots. For example, in non-close-contact scenarios, people can keep a certain distance from the robot and observe its work while ensuring their own safety. However, in scenarios that require physical contact, such as elderly care or personnel assistance, the safety and risk issues of humanoid robots cannot be underestimated, which requires more research work on technology and application scenarios.

At the same time, robot ethics is also a frequently discussed topic. How to balance the development of science and technology with ethical needs, and how to find a balance between scientific and technological progress and social ethics are issues of great concern to both industry and academia.

It is understood that many governments are also actively promoting the formulation of artificial intelligence ethical standards, and the mainland also has a national science and technology ethics committee. In 2023, the Ministry of Science and Technology, together with the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other 10 departments, issued the Measures for the Review of Science and Technology Ethics (Trial), which mentions that the development of scientific and technological activities should adhere to the unity of promoting innovation and preventing risks, objectively assess and prudently treat uncertainties and risks of technology application, follow the principles of science and technology ethics that promote human well-being, respect the right to life, adhere to fairness and justice, reasonable risk control, and maintain openness and transparency, and abide by the mainland constitution, laws and regulations and relevant provisions as well as science and technology ethics norms.

"Challenges and opportunities coexist in this field, which deserves in-depth study and discussion. Wang Shuo told reporters that in this era of "artificial intelligence +", only through continuous innovation and improvement of technology, strengthen the formulation of ethics and legal norms, can we ensure the healthy development of humanoid robots.

In Liu Cong's view, the development of humanoid robots is one of the important symbols of the era of artificial intelligence, and their wide application is profoundly changing people's production and lifestyle, but also facing many challenges.

"First, the current hardware cost is too high, which limits the application of humanoid robots in various scenarios, and the upstream and downstream industrial chain needs to be further improved. Second, to make a large model, it puts forward higher requirements for computing power. Third, embodied intelligence is not only the application of large models, but also needs to be explored in combination with specific scenarios in the future. Liu Cong said.

He also specifically emphasized that in the future, we should pay attention to the training of cross-talents in the field of artificial intelligence and robotics.

"We shouldn't be afraid of artificial intelligence. For me, AI is more of a tool and a means to help us achieve a better society. In order to master this tool, we need to learn about AI and work on its applications. Wang Shuo said.

He agrees that tools have their pros and cons, and AI is no exception. It is important to bring out the positive aspects of the equation while trying to curb the possible negative effects of it. "This requires us to guide and regulate from multiple aspects such as law, social perception and culture to ensure that AI truly benefits mankind. ”

Wang Shuo has been engaged in the field of robotics for a long time, and has witnessed the development of robots from traditional industrial applications, gradually expanding to the service field, and then to special robots, and has now penetrated into many different industries, including medical, logistics and housework, etc., with a wider range of types and social services involved.

"I think young people can pay more attention to this dynamic and promising industry. Not only can they keep abreast of the latest technological developments, but they can also open up a broader path for their future development. Wang Shuo said.

Source: China Youth Daily