Ask anyone who regularly interviews people and they'll tell you that few things are stranger than when the tables turn and you're the one being interviewed. This is especially true when the person interviewing you has been dead for a year and a half. Virtually Parkinson is a new podcast in which celebrities are interviewed by an AI model trained to speak and act like the late Michael Parkinson. The announcement of the podcast last year prompted a flurry of vaguely apocalyptic reactions. It was sacrilegious, some said, tantamount to digging up and reanimating a national treasure against his will. It was pointless, others said – of all the transformative ways to use AI, you're blowing it on a podcast?

From mundane tools like lawnmowers to fantastical concept cars that get to know their drivers, just about every innovation showcased at CES 2023 was infused with AI. While some products took the form of "robots," others invisibly leveraged AI capabilities to make everyday products smarter and more useful. As AMD CEO Lisa Su said in her keynote address, "AI is truly the most important megatrend for the future of tech." Advancements in autonomous driving haven't developed as quickly as some imagined they would. However, cars are incrementally becoming smarter and smarter, with autonomy seemingly just over the horizon.

CES has announced the innovation award winners for the upcoming CES 2023 event happening in Las Vegas, on January 5-8, 2023. We went through the list of honorees and highlighted the robotics-related solutions for this story. French robotics company, ACWA Robotics, built a water pipe infrastructure mapping robot. The robot moves through the pipes while the water is running. The robot is able to precisely track its location while imaging the pipes, creating a map of exactly where repairs are needed.