OpenAI is reportedly planning to officially relaunch its robotics team, which was disbanded in 2020
OpenAI, which develops chat AI 'ChatGPT' and image generation AI 'DALL-E', closed its in-house robotics team in 2020. However, it has been reported that OpenAI is recruiting research engineers to start up its robotics team again.
OpenAI Is Rebooting Its Robotics Team (paywall bypass in comments) : r/singularity
Briefing: OpenAI Restarted Its Robotics Team — The Information
When OpenAI was founded, robotics was a pillar of its mission, and co-founder Wojciech Zaremba oversaw a team that aimed to build general-purpose robots. In fact, in 2019, OpenAI researchers published a paper (PDF file) titled 'Training two neural networks to solve a Rubik's Cube with a single robotic hand.'
However, OpenAI disbanded its robotics team in October 2020. Zaremba said the reason for the disbandment was 'lack of training data,' and added , 'The decision to disband the team was very difficult, but from the company's perspective, this is the best choice.'
Since then, OpenAI, which has grown significantly due to the success of ChatGPT and other projects, has actively invested in robotics, such as investing $745 million (approximately 110 billion yen) in Figure, a company developing humanoid robots, $125 million (approximately 19 billion yen) in 1X Technologies, and $70 million (approximately 10.9 billion yen) in Physical Intelligence.
With investment from OpenAI, Figure
'We're always looking to get back into robotics, and right now we're looking at what humanoid robots can achieve with high-performance multimodal AI models,' said Peter Welinder, vice president of OpenAI and a former member of the robotics team.
However, some sources said that OpenAI is looking for a research engineer to rebuild its closed robotics team. OpenAI has not disclosed details about its in-house robotics efforts, but the job listing states, 'Be one of the first members of the team.'
In addition, the restarted OpenAI robotics team does not intend to compete with existing robot manufacturers, but rather plans to choose the path of coexistence, and will be responsible for building technology that robot manufacturers will integrate into their own systems. In addition, the job posting states that engineers hired as robotics members will be responsible for collaborating with external partners and training AI models.
Meanwhile, Covariant, a company founded by former members of OpenAI's robotics team that trains its own robotics models, is concerned that OpenAI's return to robotics will intensify competition for limited talent.
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