Figure AI announced Tuesday that it was cutting ties with OpenAI. A radical decision for a company that develops a humanoid robot, and for which artificial intelligence is a crucial element in bringing a robotic biped to life, in order to make it integrate human gestures, with all the difficulty that entails. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the startup had been propelled by more than $1.5 billion in funding from OpenAI, but also Jeff Bezos, Nvidia and Microsoft. Today, it plans to move forward with its own brain and launch its own artificial intelligence, due to a "major breakthrough".
This is how founder Brett Adcock declared that Figure's new AI model would offer "something that no one has ever seen on a humanoid" in the next 30 days. A demonstration, probably, that would have the interest of reassuring investors following this separation from OpenAI. According to Tech Crunch, which reported the information, the founder of Figure AI was nevertheless very discreet about the details, while waiting for the big day. He specified, however, that his decision to use a proprietary artificial intelligence model followed the realization that OpenAI's tools were not suited to humanoid robotics.
An approach that lends credence to what Apple has always advocated regarding artificial intelligence. Rather than seeking to race for the most general models, the Apple brand focuses on smaller programs, responding to very specific requests. Figure AI therefore wants its AI model for a specific humanoid robot, less energy-intensive and costly in terms of resources. All this, despite the fact that the applications of its humanoid robots could be numerous.
Objective of 100,000 humanoids in 4 years
The firm does not want to think right away about what Tesla is trying to do with Optimus (a domestic assistant, for household chores), but is placing its pawns well. A patent filed with the American Patent Office mentions "humanoid robots programmable by the user" and "humanoid robots with communication and learning functions to help and entertain people". In the meantime, its customers should first be companies, like BMW, which has already deployed Figure 01 bipeds in a factory in South Carolina. At the end of January, Brett Adcock announced that he had signed another client, "one of the largest American companies", without giving its name.
On the hardware side, Figure AI updated its robot in August last year, unveiling Figure 02. The second generation of its biped was presented as "the most powerful humanoid robot" by its teams, with "a complete overhaul of the hardware and software". Unfortunately, little information had come out of the press release published on this occasion. In an interview with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Figure AI stated that the autonomy of its model reached 5 hours. We also learned that its speed would be seven times faster than Figure 01, which moved at only 17% of the speed of a human.
In his last statement at the end of January, the company's CEO announced his ambition to ship 1,000,000 robots over the next four years. An ambition that would certainly be possible with the next generation, Figure 03, which would be even faster and more efficient. Peter Diamandis, investor in Figure AI and engineer, told Forbes that Figure 03 was already operational in the laboratory, and that it was even more impressive.
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