Boston Dynamics Led a Robot Revolution. Now Its Machines Are Teaching Themselves New Tricks

Marc Raibert, the founder and chairman of Boston Dynamics, gave the world a menagerie of two- and four-legged machines capable of jaw-dropping parkour, infectious dance routines, and industrious shelf stacking. Raibert is now looking to lead a revolution in robot intelligence as well as acrobatics. And he says that recent advances in machine learning have accelerated his robots’ ability to learn how to perform difficult moves without human help. “The hope is that we'll be able to produce lots of behavior without having to handcraft everything that robots do,” Raibert told me recently. Boston Dynamics might have pioneered legged robots, but it’s now part of a crowded pack of companies offering robot dogs and humanoids. Only this week, a startup called Figure showed off a new humanoid called Helix, which can apparently unload groceries. Another company, x1, showed off a muscly-looking humanoid called NEO Gamma doing chores around the home. A third, Apptronik, said it plans to scale up ... Read full article.