Unlike other robots, the Proxy’s battery can be replaced to avoid downtime charging. Cobot declined to say how much it costs to buy or lease a proxy, but mobile robots often cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Robots work alongside humans, turning moving vehicles and navigating busy spaces without running into anyone. The idea, Porter says, is to level up robots as AI becomes more capable, allowing for more sophisticated manipulation and communication.
Porter says the cobot has a proxy version that will respond to voice commands using a larger language model to parse words. When a worker says “go to dock 3 and grab a car from the door,” the robot will respond accordingly. The company is also tracking the development of algorithms that allow for more sophisticated forms of manipulation.
A proxy may seem unusually convenient at a time when many companies are rushing to develop humanoid robots. But Porter says that while Amazon is working with a startup, Agility Robotics, to test its humanoid robots, he says the technology is too expensive and crude to be widely deployed. Some humanoids on the market cost tens of thousands of dollars, while others cost several hundred thousand. But autonomous capabilities vary greatly, as does reliability, making them more expensive to deploy.
“In the Amazon, we saw a lot of humanoids,” Porter says. “There are real problems that can be solved with a more human capability, but jumping all the way to a humanoid is extremely complicated.” AI, it doesn’t really exist yet.
Instead, a proxy can replace more and more menial tasks that humans often don’t want to do. Erez Agmoni, a general partner at Interwoven Ventures who was involved in bringing the cobot pilot to Maersk, says it has been very promising and has potential for expansion.
“The main reason is the ability to use robots collaboratively to support their teams without major changes to the warehouse or existing equipment,” he says. “The team hated pushing vehicles, which are too heavy, and they welcome robots that do that.”
Fadi Saad, founder of Cybernetics, a Boston-based venture capital firm that specializes in robotics, says the cobot is leading to a major new type of worker that involves moving goods on trolleys, which has been tackled by recent advances in robotics. can go He added that it is important that the proxy can be transformed into something more capable.
“Porter is trying to build a platform that can transform into a human form down the road,” Saad says. “I think that’s the right way.”
Porter isn’t the only roboticist pursuing something simpler than humanoids. Rodney Brooks, a lead researcher and co-founder of iRobot, is now the chief technology officer of Robust.AI, a company that enables collaborative mobile robots to assist human pickers inside factories and warehouses.
“There is a real need to move things in factories and warehouses, but to think that humanoids are going to do that anytime soon is just crazy,” says Brooks. “Wheels were invented for a good reason.”
What kind of menial tasks would you like to help with? Would it matter to you whether the robot was humanoid or not? Write me at hello@wired.com to let me know.
