Boston Dynamics tests ChatGPT on its robot dog Spot

Boston Dynamics has added ChatGPT to its robot dog Spot, which may make it creepier to some of you now. The integration gives Spot programmable personalities and a fake mouth that moves, which, um, yeah, it's kinda yikes.

This is just an experiment for now, but it has potential. Some companies like National Grid, BP, and the NYPD already use Spot. ChatGPT could make it more useful or again creepy, depending on your view.

To make Spot talk, Boston Dynamics put a speaker and a mic on its body. Then, they attached an arm with a camera to look like a head. The gripper hand can act like a mouth. 

Inside, Spot runs OpenAI’s GPT-4, Visual Question Answering datasets, and speech-to-text software so it can talk to people realistically. If you say “Hey, Spot!,” it will answer questions while doing its task. It can also find and face the closest person.

There are many possibilities for this Spot, like tour guides, customer service, or companions. But do people want to talk to a robot dog? That’s another story.

Boston Dynamics didn’t say what it plans to do with this Spot, but it acknowledged its robots and artificial intelligence are a great match. Maybe we’ll see more of this in the future. But Spot is still pricey at about US$75,000.

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