When will robots have their Chat GPT moment?

AI startups in New York are offering free home cleaning—as long as it’s okay to have everything filmed in order to train robots. Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong ask: how far off is a ChatGPT moment for robotics?

Robots are nothing new, and online you’ll find endless videos of cutting-edge machines doing everything from backflips to breakdancing. So with all the breakthroughs in other areas of AI, why aren’t we seeing robots on our streets and in our homes?

We hear from Grace Shao in Hong Kong, who’s been observing recent efforts in China to push the frontiers of robotics. While Subramanian Ramamoorthy, Professor of Robot Learning and Autonomy at the University of Edinburgh, explains just how complicated it is to get robots functioning in our messy human world—and why our expectations may need to be lowered, at least for now.

Presenters: Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong

Producer: Peter McManus

Soound: Laura Hay