Apple is plotting its artificial intelligence comeback with an ambitious slate of new devices, including robots, a lifelike version of Siri, a smart speaker with a display and home-security cameras. A tabletop robot that serves as a virtual companion, targeted for 2027, is the centerpiece of the AI strategy, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The smart speaker with a display, meanwhile, is slated to arrive next year, part of a push into entry-level smart-home products. Home security is seen as another big growth opportunity. New cameras will anchor an Apple security system that can automate household functions.

Recently in Tokyo an AI-driven robot leaned over a man lying on his back and gently put a hand on his knee and another on a shoulder and rolled him onto his side -- a maneuver used to change diapers or prevent bedsores in the elderly. The 150-kg artificial intelligence-driven humanoid robot called AIREC is a prototype future "caregiver" for Japan's rapidly aging population and chronic shortage of aged-care workers. "Given our highly advanced aging society and declining births, we will be needing robots' support for medical and elderly care, and in our daily lives," said Shigeki Sugano, the Waseda University professor leading AIREC's research with government funding.

They arguably have one of the best occupations in the world. But whisky sommeliers may soon have some competition for their jobs – from AI. Scientists have devised machine learning algorithms that can determine whether a whisky is of American or Scotch origin and identify its strongest aromas. And they even outperform human experts, the results show. A whisky's aroma is determined by a complex mixture of odorous compounds, which makes it highly challenging to assess. Panels of human experts are often used to identify the strongest notes of a whisky but these require a significant investment in time, money and training – and agreement between experts is often rare.

A painting produced by an AI-powered humanoid robot called Ai-Da has sold for more than 1 million at a Sotheby's auction. The portrait is of British mathematician Alan Turing who is seen as the father of modern computing.

The idea of a robot that does a wide range of household chores, from unloading the dryer to folding laundry to cleaning up a messy table, has long seemed like pure science fiction--perhaps most famously embodied by the 1960s fantasy that was Rosey in The Jetsons. Physical Intelligence, a startup in San Francisco, has shown that such a dream might actually not be so far off, demonstrating a single artificial intelligence model that has learned to do a wide range of useful home chores--including all of the above--by being trained on an unprecedented amount of data. The feat raises the prospect of bringing something as magical and generally capable as other AI models like ChatGPT into the physical world. The advent of large language models (LLMs)--general-purpose learning algorithms fed vast swaths of text from books and the internet--has given chatbots vastly more general capabilities. Physical Intelligence aims to create something similarly capable in the physical world by training a similar kind of algorithm with enormous amounts of robotic data instead.

The smell of burnt vegetation wafted through a lettuce field here one recent summer morning as nearly 200 farmers, academics and engineers gathered to witness the future of automated agriculture. Thirteen hulking machines with names like "Weed Spider" and "Mantis" crawled through rows of romaine. One used artificial intelligence cameras to scan the crops and spray them with herbicides. Yet another deployed robotic arms to cultivate and pick through the foliage. "It's a hurdle for people to get over, but the reality is, the numbers don't lie," said Tim Mahoney, a field representative for Carbon Robotics, a Seattle-based company that created one of the machines on display -- a 9,500-pound apparatus known as the LaserWeeder.

Industry 4.0 has witnessed the rise of complex robots fueled by the integration of Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) and Digital Twin (DT) technologies. While these technologies offer numerous benefits, they also introduce potential privacy and security risks. This paper surveys privacy attacks targeting robots enabled by AI and DT models. Exfiltration and data leakage of ML models are discussed in addition to the potential extraction of models derived from first-principles (e.g., physics-based). We also discuss design considerations with DT-integrated robotics touching on the impact of ML model training, responsible AI and DT safeguards, data governance and ethical considerations on the effectiveness of these attacks. We advocate for a trusted autonomy approach, emphasizing the need to combine robotics, AI, and DT technologies with robust ethical frameworks and trustworthiness principles for secure and reliable AI robotic systems.

On March 18, 2024, NVIDIA unveiled Project GR00T, a general-purpose multimodal generative AI model designed specifically for training humanoid robots. Preceding this event, Tesla's unveiling of the Optimus Gen 2 humanoid robot on December 12, 2023, underscored the profound impact robotics is poised to have on reshaping various facets of our daily lives. While robots have long dominated industrial settings, their presence within our homes is a burgeoning phenomenon. This can be attributed, in part, to the complexities of domestic environments and the challenges of creating robots that can seamlessly integrate into our daily routines.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a computer must be in want of an AI girlfriend. Certainly a lot of enterprising individuals seem to think there's a lucrative market for digital romance. OpenAI recently launched its GPT Store, where paid ChatGPT users can buy and sell customized chatbots (think Apple's app store, but for chatbots) – and the offerings include a large selection of digital girlfriends. "AI girlfriend bots are already flooding OpenAI's GPT store," a headline from Quartz, who first reported on the issue, blared on Thursday. Quartz went on to note that "the AI girlfriend bots go against OpenAI's usage policy … The company bans GPTs'dedicated to fostering romantic companionship or performing regulated activities'."

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a computer must be in want of an AI girlfriend. Certainly a lot of enterprising individuals seem to think there's a lucrative market for digital romance. OpenAI recently launched its GPT Store, where paid ChatGPT users can buy and sell customized chatbots (think Apple's app store, but for chatbots) – and the offerings include a large selection of digital girlfriends. "AI girlfriend bots are already flooding OpenAI's GPT store," a headline from Quartz, who first reported on the issue, blared on Thursday. Quartz went on to note that "the AI girlfriend bots go against OpenAI's usage policy … The company bans GPTs'dedicated to fostering romantic companionship or performing regulated activities'."