California AI Startup's Humanoid Bot Showcases Superior Coffee-Making Skills Over Tesla's Optimus

A California-based AI startup's humanoid robot has showcased exceptional coffee-making skills, potentially overshadowing the capabilities of Tesla Inc's Optimus bot designed by Elon Musk's renowned company.

Advanced Coffee-Making Humanoid Robot

Named Figure-01, the humanoid robot, produced by the AI startup Figure, demonstrated its coffee-brewing talents through a one-minute video posted on Sunday. Figure-01 efficiently operated a Keurig coffee machine, responding to voice commands, inserting a K-cup, and starting the coffee brew cycle, all captured in the video. Nevertheless, the video also indicated that human interaction was required to place and retrieve the mug on the machine's drip tray, as the robot did not hand over the coffee itself.

Breakthrough in Robot Learning

The milestone in robot learning is significant, as Figure's bot mastered the task of coffee-making after observing humans for around ten hours. Although the robot initially made errors in placing the cup inside the machine, it rapidly learned to correct its behavior autonomously without human control. Corey Lynch, a Senior AI Engineer at Figure, praised the bot's autonomous and corrective capabilities, highlighting the collaborative success of the hardware, hands, controls, and learning teams within the company.

Brett Adcock, Figure's CEO, described this achievement as 'end-to-end AI', with neural networks processing visual input to generate appropriate actions. The company envisions its humanoid robots taking on corporate tasks, filling labor gaps, and undertaking dangerous work.

Competition with Tesla's Optimus

Compared to the Figure-01, Tesla's upgraded Gen 2 Optimus bot also aims to impress with faster walking speeds, reduced weight, and refined body control that includes delicate object handling capabilities. Yet, whether Optimus can make coffee remains unclear. Musk has shown confidence in the future capabilities of Optimus, suggesting that it will one day perform intricate tasks such as threading a needle.

AI, robotics, innovation