Will a dice-playing robot eventually make you tea and do your dishes?

WNN — 

AlphaBot 2 wants to beat humans at their own game. When the robot is asked if it wants to play dice, it can interpret the question and jump into action – pressing the button on an automatic dice roller, which spins a die. It can even react to its opponent’s score with a thumbs up if they win.

The humanoid, created by AI² Robotics, based in Shenzhen, China, displayed its skills at the recent Beyond Expo in the Chinese special administrative region of Macao, where it played the game with attendees of the tech conference, including WNN journalists.

The robot’s ability to understand instructions was made possible by embodied artificial intelligence (AI) – the integration of AI systems into physical entities – allowing it to interact with and learn from the world around it.

“In the last era of robots, people needed to program them to tell them what to do,” Yandong Guo, CEO of AI² Robotics, told WNN on the sidelines of the conference. “Now you just tell them what to do, and the robot can understand the environment.”

Guo adds that it took the robot just minutes to learn to play. “We just show the robot what to do, maybe five to 10 samples, and the robot can learn.”

While AI chatbots like ChatGPT have become familiar, many experts say that embodied AI is the next big thing in the field.

Robotic butlers

Today, robots are already being used around the globe in industrial settings, like car manufacturing plants. Many robots are programmed to complete routine tasks, but things are shifting towards the use of embodied AI, says Harry Yang, an assistant professor at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. “As tasks become more complex, you need robots to see and understand and act based on different situations,” he says.

AlphaBot 2 – which comes equipped with AI² Robotics’ self-developed embodied AI model – already has customers across industrial services, biotechnology, and public services, the company says.

At a factory operated by carmaker Dongfeng Liuzhou Motor Co. it loads and unloads materials, tows carts, and attaches labels to windshields.

But Guo hopes that one day, it can step out of the factory and into the home.

Today, most robots lack the technological prowess to be helpful in a household. Hong Kong-listed UBTech Robotics plans to unveil a $20,000 home companion robot this year, according to Bloomberg, but the company said the technology was years away from being able to help with household chores and to look after humans. That’s because it’s difficult to get enough training data to simulate the varying home environments people live in, experts say. But Morgan Stanley estimates that 80 million humanoids will be used in homes by 2050, as technology advances.