Google DeepMind has has hired a former Boston Dynamics chief technology officer as the company dives deeper into robotics. Aaron Saunders, who is partly responsible for giving to the world falling backwards and dance machines, joined the company as vice president of hardware engineering earlier this month.
Staffing is a key part of DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis’ vision for Gemini to become a sort of robot operating system, similar to how Google provides Android software to a wide range of smartphone makers.
“You can think of it a bit like an Android game […] We want to build an artificial intelligence system, a Gemini base, that will work almost right out of the box, in any body configuration,” Hassabis said in an interview with WIRED. “Humanoids, of course, but also non-humanoids.”
Boston Dynamics is famous for developing leg robots, including dog-sized four-legged systems and humanoid machines capable of impressive acrobatic feats. Saunders worked on a six-legged amphibious prototype before being promoted to vice president of engineering in 2018. In 2021, he became CTO of Boston Dynamics.
Google DeepMind has been conducting important research in the field of robotics for years. As interest in more advanced forms of robots, such as humanoids, grows, researchers are focusing on developing artificial intelligence models to control robotic hardware systems.
Hassabis said he is excited about this progress. Artificial intelligence-based robotics “if I am to predict, will have its breakthrough moment in the next few years,” he explained.
Boston Dynamics is majority-owned by South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Company. Hyundai bought its shares from SoftBank, which acquired the company from Google’s parent company, Alphabet, in 2017.
The components and expertise required to build legged robots have become more available in recent years. Many American startups are currently working on humanoids, including: Agile robotics, AI drawing, 1xand of course Tesla. Elon Musk recently said that his company aims to produce one million Optimus humanoids over the next decade.
Chinese companies are also making progress in robotics and, compared to the US, offer extremely low-cost machines with legs. Unitree, headquartered in Hangzhou, China, recently acquired Boston Dynamics as the largest supplier of four-legged systems for industries such as production and construction.
Hassabis admits he’s impressed with Unitree, but says his focus is on the software. “I’m most interested in them [AI] it is part of the brain,” he says, adding that the multimodal capabilities of Google DeepMind’s flagship Gemini model are particularly well-suited to robotics.