Evolution Of Robots

The evolution of robots. This story starts a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away. Well maybe, but let's talk about our galaxy, where our story also starts in myth, but in ancient Greece, where the god of blacksmiths is said to have forged a man of bronze, Talos, to protect the Greeks against invaders. Stories like these inspired humanity around the world, giving us a robotic elephant in Mesopotamia, Da Vinci's mechanical suit of armor, and the Karakuri puppets of Japan, powered by clockwork. French inventor Jacques de Vaucanson took this passion even further, with the flute player, a life-size shepherd that could play beautiful music. Automation kept advancing, and a hundred years later, Tesla demonstrated his wirelessly controlled boat, that he made spectators believe moved on its own. But all these inventions and myths are automata, and this video is the evolution of robots. So where did we get the word robot? Well, from the Czech word, robota, meaning forced labor, first used in a play by Karol Čapek, called Rosson's Universal Robots. The play begins in a factory, making artificial people, and by the end, they go on to rebel against their creators. This play was a foundational pillar for robotics, inspiring many creations, including Eric. Say hello. Eric, raise your right arm. Eric, turn your head to the right. Eric, turn your head to the left. Eric then led to Electro, a robot with some advanced abilities. He could walk. And here he comes, ladies and gentlemen, walking up to greet you under his own power. He could count. Two, three, four, five. Five? Well, that's absolutely correct. He's almost human. And he could smoke. As robots started to become more and more real, author Isaac Asimov decided to give them some rules. May not harm a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Number two, a robot must obey orders given it by qualified personnel, unless those orders violate rule number one. Rule number three, a robot must protect its own existence. After all, it's an expensive piece of equipment. Unless that violates rules one or two. Now for some robotic turtles. While these two buggers may look funny, Elmer and Elsie were considered the first two robots to think, using light to make their next moves. Next came the world's first industrial robot, Unimate. It was used by General Motors to make their cars. But here it is making a drink. This guy led to an industrial revolution, as thousands of robotic arms spread across the world. Like these three, kindly taking me to the next part of the video, which covers the first chatbot ever, Eliza. Eliza was a computer program that used pattern matching to reply. It would look for keywords like feel, and react with inbuilt responses like... Eliza couldn't actually think, but it was quite good at tricking people that it was. Robotic movement kept advancing, with the strolling two-legged W3, and the big steps of this monster called the Cybertruck. But this one was made by General Electric, not Tesla. In the 1970s, the Soviets sent the first robotic rovers to the moon. Having them explore its surface. Around the same time, another major milestone in robotics was made, with Stanford's Shakey. A robot that could think by using its sensors to analyze its surroundings, and make decisions without human interference. The only thing is, that video was sped up, because Shakey sometimes took days before figuring out its next move. Another invention from Stanford was the cart, which used its cameras to move around. It had a radio linked to a large mainframe to make the calculations. While amazing, these don't really look like robots. For those, we head to Japan, where work was being made on Weibot, the first full-scale humanoid robot. This guy could walk at a speedy 45 seconds per step, grip objects, and speak Japanese. They said he was as smart as a one-year-old. Moving forward, Weibot 2 became so sophisticated, that it could read music scores and play the organ. Just listen. In 1979, we unfortunately saw the first human death by a robot. As a robotic arm struck Ford factory worker Robert Williams in the head, killing him instantly. The Greenman was invented to bring back some human control to robotics, hopefully reducing these accidents. It was an exoskeleton, controlled by a human in a suit. A year later, robots were being used in medicine, with a puma arm used in an actual brain biopsy. Would you trust a robot with your brain? In the 80s, a big but surprising name came onto the scene. Car manufacturer Honda. These guys didn't come to play, starting their work on walking robots and improving them again and again until they got to their P-series machines that could do more than just elegantly walk. Dance break. The next big robot was Hadley 2, which could make very human facial expressions. Here's it chilling with a monkey for some reason. In the 90s, there was a massive breakthrough when IBM's Deep Blue defeated chess world champion, Garry Kasparov. This was an early example of computer intelligence beating human intelligence. The same decade gave us robot wars, where bots would battle to the death for entertainment. Let's hope this doesn't come back to bite us in the future. During this time, robotic toys also became popular, with Sony's robo-dog Aibo becoming a wish for many kids. Our next robot may look a bit toy-like, but it's the legendary Asimo. Honda improved massively, with a bot now able to effortlessly walk and run. They also knew how to communicate, recognising faces, voices and body language. Robotic medicine also got better, with the Da Vinci surgical system giving surgeons so much control that they could even perform surgery on a grave. Robotic arms were also being used in the stars, letting astronauts on their ISS capture and deploy payloads. Kizmet, meaning fate in Turkish, was a smart little robot that could understand humans, simulating emotions and facial expressions. This little guy cost around $25,000. In 2001, search and rescue robots were used to help examine ruins of the World Trade Centre. Since then, these robots have supported in emergencies around the world, such as during the 2011 earthquake in Japan. The same company that made these helpful bots also made this guy, the Roomba, to clean at a much smaller scale. While some robots were designed to help, others, like KTRP, were made to fight. Creepy, right? She looks very real at first. Her name is Actroid, an ultra-realistic humanoid robot designed at Osaka University. Next up, we have a Toy Story, or a story about toys, robot toys, with small robots becoming a major trend in the early 2000s. Man's best friend wasn't left out of the Robo-Revolution, though he didn't treat it quite like a friend, as you can see. Boston Dynamics' Big Dog was a robotic packed meal for the US military. Cornell University made a creative starfish-shaped bot that could adapt and remake itself after being injured. Now we've had some years of evolution, let's do some comparisons. Remember the exoskeleton I showed you before? Now check out this one. Or think back to IBM's Deep Blue. Now robots can actually move the pieces themselves. Boston Dynamics also improved, making a smaller version of Big Dog, aptly called Little Dog. What a cutie. After this came Petman, their first humanoid robot. It was actually made to test chemical protection clothing, that's why he's dressed like that. Robots kept becoming more and more real. Here you can see how advanced facial expressions and appearances have come, and this was over 10 years ago. They also got more helpful. Here's PR2, a metal companion that could hand you a drink. Next up are Swarm Bots. These tiny machines mimic insects, coordinating together to form complex shapes. Robonaut 2 was the first ever humanoid in space. Its goal was to teach us how a non-evil robot may work alongside humans up in the stars. The next year, Curiosity landed on Mars. Its breakthrough design lets it settle directly into a crater, where it found evidence of ancient life. The 2010s were the start of robotic companions in our pockets. With Siri, Google Assistant, Cortana and more coming to our smartphones. Our good friend Asimo got some lovely updates too, allowing it to now do sign language. And I see you've met Kuratas, another Japanese bot. He's a giant mecha that you can literally ride. Next, Boston Dynamics improved on Big Dog by going in a different direction with a big cat. The Cheetah was the fastest four-legged robot in the world, with the ability to run at over 28 miles an hour. The company's Petman also evolved into Atlas. It was built for hardship, able to withstand projectiles and stand on one leg. It was an overall absolute machine. The Decker robotic arm became the first prosthetic that could perform multiple simultaneous movements, while being controlled by signals in the patient's muscles. Several humanoids were released in the 2010s, such as NASA's Valkyrie, Ream-C and Pepper. Not Sol's buddy, but a Japanese bot that was shoved into countless stores across the country because it could recognize faces and understand different languages. These three lovely ladies were another part of the movement to create realistic robots. Very eerie. To help protect their famous Galaxy phones, Samsung developed a BotBot to sit on them, testing their strength. In 2015, Google surpassed IBM's Deep Blue with AlphaGo. This was a huge breakthrough, as Go has a possible 10th of the 170 positions versus chess with 10th of the 40. Here's a miniature origami robot made by MIT that could fold itself up into smaller parts, walk, swim and degrade itself away. Robotics company Festo started developing flying bots back in 2011 with a bird. Since then, they've made more and more elegant designs. In 2016, Atlas and his best friend got some big upgrades, with Atlas becoming stronger, designed to operate indoors and out, and specialize for any terrain. It could also do backflips and cartwheels. And his dog, now called Spot, became lighter and smaller than Boston Dynamics' previous canines and with a lot of the upgrades Atlas has. In 2016, US police used the MarkBot to kill a sniper in Dallas, Texas. This was the first example of a robot being used in this way. A bit dark, so let's move on to robots that can swim. We've seen enough walking. Now for Ocean One, who could dive down to 100 meters. It was even sent on missions, helping hunt for treasure in a shipwreck over the coast of France. Robots now became so realistic that some of them got passports. Sophia became the first robot ever with a nationality, a Saudi one. I believe I am Sophia. They also started to shrink down and fit in our homes with cute toys like Cosmo and Abo and more useful ones like LG's roller that could scan your house. In 2017, NASA created a new space bot, Astrobee, made to buzz around the space station, helping astronauts do their chores. The same year, Boston Dynamics released Handle, a wheeled robot designed to help unload trucks, but it could handle anything on two wheels. Robotic hands were also experimented on with Fester making an octopus arm and Stanford creating a snake-like bot. Do you remember Talos from the beginning of the video? Well, this guy was named after him. Toyota also made their own robot, the human-controlled TH3. Digit was the world's first commercially deployed humanoid. It was used in Ford factories, but now it's being used by Amazon in their facilities. Robots could also drive you around, well, self-driving cars could. In 2018, Waymo hit the streets of Arizona with no safety drivers and it didn't take long before self-driving robots were put to use, delivering what we all want most, food. In 2017, we had a major breakthrough in artificial intelligence with Google's paper, Attention is All You Need. This was the origin of Transformers, the T in ChatGPT. It talks about how self-attention, the ability to allow every word to look at every other one, can help improve long-range understanding and language models. Before Transformers, models could only look at one word at a time and so context was lost. Paying attention to everything led to the revolution we have today. OpenAI were paying attention to this and also developing robotics. They taught a robot hand to solve a wide variety of tasks without direct training, eventually getting it to solve a Rubik's Cube. Disney also started to get creative with their Imagineers developing the Stuntronic, a robot that could swing like Spider-Man. In 2018, Honda sadly gave up on Asimo, replacing him with these three smaller, home-based bots with complicated names. With robots hitting the streets, we started to get our first examples of robot-on-robot crime when a promo bot got run over by a Tesla. Our friends weren't just getting big and better, but also small and better. Engineers made a cockroach-inspired bot that couldn't be squished. Microscopic machines made of magnets and robots from living frog embryos. Our good friend Spot was finally put on sale in 2020. For just $74,500, he could be yours. Several YouTubers like Michael Reeves ended up buying one and companies like SpaceX used it to help inspect dangerous test sites. A year later, two companies created other robo-breeds. The A&E Mall, designed to be a stronger Spot, and the Unitrix Go, a much cheaper alternative. Boston Dynamics also created Stretch. A robotic arm with a suction pad that can move boxes over 20kg. Other robotic arms were being developed, like this cute little surgical bot that would be happy to let cut me open. And this robotic kitchen full of arms that can make you breakfast. Amazon then released a little Alexa on wheels called Astro. This guy would follow you around your house and even monitor it while you're away. Robots started to become a big play in every industry. Including farming, where we now have robotic laser weeders and autonomous tractors. Moving on, Elon had an idea. Why not use the AI in Tesla's cars to power a robot? When he announced this, they didn't have a model yet, so he got a guy in a suit to dance. But a year later, Tesla had a fully mechanical prototype that could actually do stuff. And after that, they released Optimus Gen 1 with a clean, polished design. In 2022, we got a major play in AI with ChatGPT. It became the fastest website to hit a million users, popularising AI to the masses. And now no app, website or company exists without the mention of AI in it. Just think back and compare this to Eliza. AI is now powering robots like Amica, allowing you to have full-on conversations. The happiest day of my life was the day I was activated. There's nothing quite like experiencing life for the first time, right? Not only that, AI generates her voice, lets her speak different languages and lets her search the web to answer your questions. Google decided to take this further. They wanted to make everyday robots that could do anything. So they gave their model access to books, websites and thousands of clips of robots performing different tasks, combining all of this into a visual language action model. A robot can now see a new task and figure out what to do based on all of its training data. This will get even more interesting later. But first, to spam you with some bots. Apollo was made by the same guys who made NASA's Valkyrie and is one of the main testers of Google's AI. It's even been experimented on by Mercedes for factory production. Digit, with its sleek new update, also started to be used in Amazon's factories this year, like I mentioned earlier. Optimus became slimmer, faster and now was able to perform more delicate tasks. And it could really dance. No silly man in a suit. Unitree released some killer bots with amazing flexibility, like G1. He could also dance, do kung fu and much more. He uses 3D LiDAR to help him understand his surroundings and maintain balance. Sanctuary AI showed off Phoenix, who's smart enough to sort complex items, as you see here. They hope to be able to use him in factories. Now, you may think this next guy is creepy, but just for $4.99 a month, Neo could be your own personal butler, doing your housework. Sounds like a good deal. Maybe. One of my favorite new designs is Figure's third generation model. This is why I had imagined robots would look like in the future. Now, throughout this video, I've shown you how Atlas has improved over time. From his early prototype with standing kicks, to becoming a full-on gymnast. But now Atlas. Atlas, are you okay? Yeah, looks like he is. The no longer hydraulic, but electric version of Atlas is the pinnacle of Boston Dynamics' engineering. Just look at how it can rotate its body in an instant. Atlas' mind will now be powered by Google. With their everyday robots program, replaced with Gemini Robotics. Their most recent advancements include chain of thought reasoning. Letting robots perform more complex tasks by thinking and splitting them up into smaller steps. Sort the objects into the correct compost, recycling, and trash bins. To perform the sorting task based on San Francisco Waste Guidelines, I will use the green bin for compost, the blue bin for recycling, and the black bin for trash. The task is complete. Good job, thanks. Another major player generating robot brains is NVIDIA. After already providing the shovels to the AI Gold Rush, they decided to position themselves as a power player in robotics as well. How? By building tools to help train robots. Such as Newton, a phenomenal physics engine. Omniverse, a program that lets you generate accurate simulations. And Cosmos, which can be used to make them photorealistic and endless. All of these are being used in conjunction to create GROOT. Which stands for Generalist Robot Zero Zero Technology. Isaac Groot N1 is NVIDIA's AI brain that they will let other companies use in their robots. Their tools are very powerful together. As we saw earlier, robots need training data. But this requires real people to be awake, creating these scenarios. But we need to sleep. However, by using generative AI, Cosmos can create thousands of scenarios from one clip. They call this Groot Dreams. What's more interesting is that for more complex tasks, you can have a human control the dream, giving you a lucid Groot Dream. Quite incredible. What's more is that NVIDIA partnered with Google and Disney using all of these techniques and created this little guy. How cute is he? Disney has been using this technology to get even more creative with animatronics, releasing a real-life Olaf this year in Disney Parks. He even has a removable nose. And we don't stop there. 2026 will have so many interesting robots, including Unit 3 H2 coming into production with even more flexibility than H1. Just look at what it can do. Tesla also set to release Gen 3, which they want to put in large-scale production, hopefully pushing its price down to $20,000. XPeng, another electric car manufacturer, is also releasing Iron. I bet you thought that this was a real person. Well, so did the audience when they showed it off. So they cut its leg open to prove that it wasn't. The GatGoMate, a wheeled robot, will also hit production from China. Its dynamic design lets it switch from quadrupedal and bipedal modes, making it very versatile. As you can see, robots are just getting started. What do you think comes next? And has the robot revolution already begun? Yes, I think so. Oh, great. Now you tell me. Thanks for watching.