Microsoft Shows Off AI That Can Control an Entire Robot

Microsoft has released a new generative model, dubbed Magma, that can autonomously control an entire robot while processing information from its sensors — a fascinating step toward a world in which AI like ChatGPT could interact with the physical world using a robotic arm, a humanoid android, or something else entirely. In its announcement, the tech giant claims its latest AI can process multimodal data, including text, images, and video, while also being able to "plan and act in the visual-spatial world." That means it could be used to "complete agentic tasks ranging from UI navigation to robot manipulation." "Magma is able to formulate plans and execute actions to achieve it," Microsoft wrote in its research paper documenting the new tool. "By effectively transferring knowledge from freely available visual and language data, Magma bridges verbal and spatial intelligence to navigate complex tasks." Magma is part of a much broader transition from simple large language models and cha ... Read full article.