Security robot walking on the street
Robotics

What the Watchbot Sees

Knightscope’s security robots look cute. But these cone-headed automatons, which serve U.S. police departments and businesses, are serious surveillance machines.
Robot cooking, controlled by a person
Robotics

Robotic Control, Easy as Apple Pie

Robots designed to assist people with disabilities have become more capable, but they’ve also become harder to control. New research offers a way to operate such complex mechanical systems more intuitively.
Mechanical hand unscrambling a Rubik's Cube
Robotics

Cube Controversy

OpenAI trained a five-fingered robotic hand to unscramble the Rubik’s Cube puzzle, bringing both acclaim and criticism. The AI research lab OpenAI trained a mechanical hand to balance, twist, and turn the cube.
Drone race
Robotics

Autonomous Drones Ready to Race

Pilots in drone races fly souped-up quadcopters around an obstacle course at 120 miles per hour. But soon they may be out of a job, as race organizers try to spice things up with drones controlled by AI.
Robot being trained using a virtual reality interface
Robotics

A Robot in Every Kitchen

Every home is different. That makes it difficult for domestic robots to translate skills learned in one household into another. Training in virtual reality, where the robot has access to rich information about three-dimensional objects, can make it easier to generalize skills to the real world.
Drone used for surveying on construction site
Robotics

Robots Put Down Stakes

Construction projects require teams of surveyors who continually map blueprints to precise, real-world locations. Drones might do it faster, saving time and money.
Harvest bot
Robotics

Agbots Want Jobs Americans Don’t

Advances in computer vision and robotic dexterity may reach the field just in time to save U.S. agriculture from a looming labor shortage. CNN Business surveyed the latest crop of AI-powered farmbots.
Continuous Planner for One-Shot Imitation Learning
Robotics

Working Through Uncertainty

How to build robots that respond to novel situations? When prior experience is limited, enabling a model to describe its uncertainty can enable it to explore more avenues to success.
DeepIndex.org list with ways AI is being put to use
Robotics

AI in the Real World

Theoretical advances can be thrilling, but the excitement can drown out all the ways AI is actually being put to use. DeepIndex provides an up-to-date, well organized, cheeky guide to practical applications culled from news reports.

Subscribe to The Batch

Stay updated with weekly AI News and Insights delivered to your inbox