ChatGPT has been added to Spot, the robot dog developed by Boston Dynamics and made into a commercial product. Spot can now talk.
An interesting development occurred a short time ago. This development is either very cute and useful or just another step towards a Black Mirror-style dystopia. Boston Dynamics’ robot dog Spot integrated ChatGPT, allowing the machine to talk to users.
Spot Can Now Speak
The combination of generative AI and quadrupedal robot was shaped by the hands of Santiago, an engineer who builds machine learning systems. Santiago tweeted a video showing how and why ChatGPT was integrated into Spot. As can be seen from the video, users can use the Google text-to-speech feature to ask Spot questions about past and upcoming tasks, which Spot can respond to in real time. Santiago writes that ChatGPT interpreted the question, parsed the files, and formulated an answer.
ChatGPT Simplifies Interaction
The reason behind the integration is to simplify the reporting of robots and their work. While robots like Spot perform automated tasks every day, they collect data as a result of these tasks. Therefore, simple reporting of these data is possible thanks to ChatGPT. This simplifies the whole process in robot interaction and control.
Meanwhile, Spot can also nod to answer yes or no questions. Frankly, I can say that this feature is closer to the “cute” side. On the other hand, integrating ChatGPT or other productive AIs into robots will always pose a question mark and concern.
A few weeks ago, the New York Police Department had deployed Spot robots. Perhaps such an integration would be of use to the security forces. According to other recent ChatGPT news, OpenAI shows that it spends hundreds of thousands of dollars every day to keep the chatbot up and running.
