OpenAI is Considering Building a Humanoid Robot: Report

OpenAI building humanoid robots: Sam Altman-owned artificial intelligence (AI) startup, OpenAI, is reportedly considering building a humanoid robot. The move could be a part of the company's expansion strategy, wherein it uses its existing software stack to pivot into robotics -- a field that it has considered exploring in the past as well before its silently disbanded the team.

According to a report by The Information, OpenAI has reportedly 'considered developing a humanoid robot' recently, people with direct knowledge of the ongoing internal discussions told the publication.

What is a humanoid robot?

For the unversed, a humanoid robot is a bi-pedal robot that resembles a human being and is designed to work alongside humans. These robots use advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models to see and sense the world around them and perform complex tasks.

Sophia, ASIMO and Junko Chihira are some of the most popular examples of humanoid robots.\

OpenAI's humanoid robot plans

While this might seem like a new development, but the company has been doing the groundwork for quite some time now. This includes investing in several startups, such as Figure AI, Physical Intelligence and 1X Technologies, startup that have been working on building humanoid robots and developing artificial general intelligence or AGI. The company has also been working on expanding its robotics team. As per reports earlier this, the AI startup had opened several job listings earlier this year for research engineers to join its robotics team. The job description included training the company's large language models or LLMs to provide new capabilities for robots.

While OpenAI is actively considering the development of a humanoid robot, it is unlikely that it makes an announcement in this regard soon. As per the report, building a humanoid robot is a low-priority matter for OpenAI as it is prioritising developing its reasoning model and an AI agent that could 'help automate all manner of software engineering and analysis tasks'.