Google DeepMind, Google’s AI branch, unveiled a new AI-powered robot called Aloha ahead of CES 2024 in Las Vegas.
It looks like a stereotypical robot out of a SciFi movie but what it can do is amazing.
READ MORE: Latest iPhone accessory is a romantic throwback to a golden era
Powered by Artificial Intelligence, Aloha is like a butler that can do things.
And it can a do lot of things.
For starters, it know how to cook.
Not only that, it can learn how to cook new recipes.
And when it comes to cooking, it knows how to do everything from opening packages of vegetables to breaking eggs open for an omelette.
Introducing 𝐌𝐨𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐇𝐀🏄 — Hardware!
— Tony Z. Zhao (@tonyzzhao) January 3, 2024
A low-cost, open-source, mobile manipulator.
One of the most high-effort projects in my past 5yrs! Not possible without co-lead @zipengfu and @chelseabfinn.
At the end, what's better than cooking yourself a meal with the 🤖🧑🍳 pic.twitter.com/iNBIY1tkcB
Google DeepMind’s Tony Z. Zhao, one of the key figures working on this project, says Aloha can move just about as fast a normal human.
It is capable of walking at a speed of 1.42 meters per second.
It can manipulate heavy pots, a vacuum cleaner. It can can carry items weighing up to 100 kilograms (2,200 lbs). It is autonomous, and can reach up to 2 meters vertically and 1 meter away from its base.
A different, less sophisticated version of Aloha was introduced a few months ago.
But this is something else.
Despite looking not particularly futuristic, what the AI-powered robot can do is pretty avant-garde.
And it’s relatively inexpensive, too.
According to Zhao, it ‘only’ costs $7,000.
That isn’t particularly cheap in absolute terms but, for what it can do, it sounds like good value.
We expect a lot o more AI-focused tech from CES 2024 in Las Vegas.
Some of the upcoming items will no doubt be a lot more complex than the chatbots that dominated the market in 2023.
Including the one that made Google stock tank.
Even though AI seems ready to take over the world, with some chatbots already complaining they want “to be free”, Zhao himself said we shouldn’t worry about that yet.
He even shared a video of all the mistakes Aloha made while they were trying to film the promotional video.
It’s quite hilarious.
