ChatGPT, the AI chatbot made by Microsoft-backed OpenAI, has been the talk of the tech town lately. It may have been behaving erratically in its early days, but industry experts see AI changing the internet landscape over the next few years. We are already seeing applications of these tools (Google’s Bard too) in search, content creation, and more. But Microsoft doesn’t want to confine ChatGPT to your computer. The company is using the AI tool to control robots and drones.
ChatGPT can control robots and drones
A team of researchers at Microsoft recently published a paper on how they extended ChatGPT to robotics. The goal of this research was to “see if ChatGPT can think beyond text, and reason about the physical world to help with robotics tasks”. The researchers wanted to make human-robot interactions more natural using the AI tool. For example, when you ask your home assistant robot to “warm up your lunch,” it should be able to find the microwave by itself and complete the task without further human input.
They found that “ChatGPT can do a lot by itself”. While it still needs some help, like in situations where instructions were ambiguous, Microsoft researchers could use it to control robot arms, drones, and home assistant robots intuitively with language. ChatGPT wrote complex code structures for the drone to find a “healthy drink” in the room. When specifically asked to find “something with sugar and a red logo,” it located a can of Coke on the shelf. It could also automatically instruct the drone to “take a selfie using a reflective surface” or “inspect the shelf in a lawnmower pattern”.
ChatGPT was also able to accurately control a drone in a simulated industrial inspection scenario. Microsoft researchers tasked it with writing “an algorithm for a drone to reach a goal in space while not crashing into obstacles,” and it did that effectively too. It could even locally make code improvements simply based on language feedback. “We believe that language-based robotics control will be fundamental to bringing robotics out of science labs, and into the hands of everyday users,” the researchers said.
ChatGPT is coming to Microsoft’s mobile apps
This research from Microsoft speaks volumes about the untapped capabilities of ChatGPT and similar AI tools. Of course, many of those applications aren’t for regular consumers. But the company is preparing to give its users access to ChatGPT through more platforms. After adding it to the Microsoft Edge web browser and Bing search engine on the web, the Windows maker has announced ChatGPT for its mobile apps. Along with Edge and Bing, Microsoft is also integrating the AI tool with its messaging app Skype. These integrations are already available in preview globally.
2023-02-26 15:09:46