Artificial intelligence can find you a recipe or generate a picture, but it can’t hang a picture on a wall or cook you dinner. Chelsea Finn wants that to change. Finn, an engineer and researcher at Stanford University, believes that AI may be on the cusp of powering a new era in robotics. “In the long term we want to develop software that would allow the robots to operate intelligently in any situation,” she says. A company she co-founded has already demonstrated a general-purpose AI robot that can fold laundry, among other tasks. Other researchers have shown AI’s potential for improving robots’ ability to do everything from package sorting to drone racing. And Google just unveiled an AI-powered robot that could pack a lunch. But the research community is split over whether generative AI tools can transform robotics the way they’ve transformed some online work. Robots require real-world data and face much tougher problems than chatbots. “Robots are not going to suddenly become this science fiction dream overnight,” says Ken Goldberg, a professor at UC Berkeley. “It’s really important that people understand that, because we’re not there yet.”

Full story : Researchers are rushing to build AI-powered robots. But will they work?