Japanese electronics and entertainment conglomerate Sony Group Corp says it has the technology to make humanoid robots quickly once it has identified how they could be effectively used. "In terms of technology, several companies in the world including this one have enough technology accumulated to make them swiftly once it becomes clear which usage is promising," Sony Chief Technology Officer Hiroaki Kitano told Reuters in an interview. "The key is the development of application." Sony launched a robot dog called Aibo more than two decades ago. It sold about 150,000 units of Aibo from 1999 until 2006 and launched an advanced version in 2018, selling about 20,000 units in the first six months.

TOKYO, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Japanese electronics and entertainment conglomerate Sony Group Corp (6758.T) said on Tuesday it has the technology to make humanoid robots quickly once it has identified how they could be effectively used. "In terms of technology, several companies in the world including this one have enough technology accumulated to make them swiftly once it becomes clear which usage is promising," Sony Chief Technology Officer Hiroaki Kitano told Reuters in an interview. "The key is the development of application," Kitano said. Sony launched a robot dog called Aibo more than two decades ago. It sold about 150,000 units of Aibo from 1999 until 2006 and launched an advanced version in 2018, selling about 20,000 units in the first six months.

AI and Machine Learning systems have proven a boon to scientific research in a variety of academic fields in recent years. They've assisted scientists in identifying genomic markers ripe for cutting-edge treatments, accelerating the discovery of potent new drugs and therapeutics, and even publishing their own research. Throughout this period, however, AI/ML systems have often been relegated to simply processing large data sets and performing brute force computations, not leading the research themselves. But Dr. Hiroaki Kitano, CEO of Sony Computer Science Laboratories, has plans for a "hybrid form of science that shall bring systems biology and other sciences into the next stage," by creating an AI that's just as capable as today's top scientific minds. To do so, Kitano seeks to launch the Nobel Turing Challenge and develop a AI smart enough to win itself a Nobel Prize by 2050.

As I write this blob post, we're a few days away from the opening of the 2021 RoboCup Competitions and Symposium. Running from June 22nd-28th, this event brings together AI and robotics researchers and learners from around the world, for the first (and ideally last!) time in a fully remote format. The first official international RoboCup event occurred 25 years ago, at the IROS 1996 conference in Osaka, Japan. Called "pre-RoboCup" because the first full RoboCup was slated to launch the following year at the 1997 IJCAI conference in Nagoya, the CMUnited team created by myself and my Ph.D. advisor, Manuela Veloso, was the only non-Japanese entry in the simulation competition, which was the only event that year. While RoboCup has indisputably played a huge role in the last quarter-century of AI research, it has also played a leading role in my own personal story.

In 1997, Hiroaki Kitano, a research scientist at Sony, helped organize the first Robocup, a robot soccer tournament that attracted teams of robotics and artificial intelligence researchers to compete in the picturesque city of Nagoya, Japan. At the start of the first day, two teams of robots took to the pitch. As the machines twitched and surveyed their surroundings, a reporter asked Kitano when the match would begin. "I told him it started five minutes ago!" he says with a laugh. Such was the state of AI and robotics at the time.

Sony Corp. has launched Sony AI, a new organization to pursue advanced R&D in artificial intelligence. With this move, the Japanese consumer electronics giant intends to go head-to-head with Google and Facebook, competing for AI talent and projects, and targeting a much bigger role in an ever-accelerating global AI race. The new organization will be worldwide from day one, with research sites in Tokyo, Austin, Texas, and an unnamed city in Europe. Sony AI will formally start operation next month. Hiroaki Kitano, president and CEO, Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc., will run Sony AI globally.

Sony has established a set of ethical guidelines for handling artificial intelligence technologies, following the lead of Google and Microsoft. "Sony has to show a clear standpoint on the technology," said Hiroaki Kitano, chief executive at Sony Computer Science Laboratories. AI has become crucial to businesses in many industries, especially for the development of new products and services. But using the technology to process vast amounts of data, often including customers' personal information, raises a number of ethical concerns. Google in June disclosed its guidelines on AI, which detail policies such as not pursuing "technologies that cause or are likely to cause overall harm," such as weapons.

Sony has provided a robot platform for research and development in physical agents, namely, fully autonomous legged robots. In this article, we describe our work using Sony's legged robots to participate at the RoboCup-98 legged robot demonstration and competition. Robotic soccer represents a challenging environment for research in systems with multiple robots that need to achieve concrete objectives, particularly in the presence of an adversary. Furthermore, RoboCup offers an excellent opportunity for robot entertainment. We introduce the RoboCup context and briefly present Sony's legged robot.

The Robot World Cup Soccer Games and Conferences (RoboCup) are a series of competitions and events designed to promote the full integration of AI and robotics research. Following the first RoboCup, held in Nagoya, Japan, in 1997, RoboCup-98 was held in Paris from 2-9 July, overlapping with the real World Cup soccer competition. RoboCup-98 included competitions in three leagues: (1) the simulation league, (2) the real robot small-size league, and (3) the real robot middle-size league. It was organized by University of Paris-VI and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and was sponsored by Sony Corporation, NAMCO Limited, and SUNX Limited, with official balls for the middle-size league supplied by Molten Corporation. Over 15,000 people watched the games, and over 120 international media (such as CNN, ABC, NHK, and TV-Aich) and prominent scientific magazines covered the competition.

RoboCup is an initiative designed to promote the full integration of AI and robotics research. Following the success of the first RoboCup in 1997 at Nagoya (Kitano 1998; Noda et al. 1998) and the second RoboCup in Paris in 1998 (Asada et al. 2000; Asada and Kitano 1999), the Third Robot World Cup Soccer Games and Conferences, RoboCup-99, were held in Stockholm from 27 July to 4 August 1999 in conjunction with the Sixteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-99). There were four different leagues: (1) the simulation league, (2) the smallsize real robot league, (3) the middle-size real robot league, and (4) the Sony legged robot league. RoboCup-2000, the Fourth Robot World Cup Soccer Games and Conferences, will take place in Melbourne, Australia, in August 2000. It was organized by Linköping University with the cooperation of Stockholm University, and it was sponsored by Sony Corporation, Sun Microsystems, Futurniture, First Hotel, The Foundation for Knowledge and Competence Development, The Swedish Council for Planning and Coordination of Research, The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, the Swedish National Board for Industrial and Technical Development, and the Wallenberg Laboratory for Research on Information Technology and Autonomous Systems.