Unlike other robots, Proxie’s battery can be replaced to avoid charging downtime. Cobot wouldn’t say how much it costs to buy or lease Proxie, but mobile robots often cost tens of thousands of dollars apiece.
The robots work alongside humans, taking turns driving carts and navigating busy spaces without bumping into anyone. Porter says the idea is for robots to level up as artificial intelligence capabilities augment, which would enable more sophisticated manipulation and communication.
Cobot has a version of Proxie that responds to voice commands, using a enormous language model to analyze utterances, Porter says. When the employee says, “Go to dock 3 and grab the cart by the door,” the robot will respond accordingly. The company also follows the development of algorithms allowing for more sophisticated forms of manipulation.
Proxie may seem incredibly uncomplicated at a time when many companies are rushing to develop humanoid robots. But Porter says that while Amazon is working with one startup, Agility Robotics, to test a humanoid robot, the technology is simply too steep and crude for wide-scale adoption, Porter says. Some humanoids on the market cost tens of thousands of dollars, while others cost many hundreds of thousands. However, autonomous capabilities vary widely, as does reliability, making them more costly to implement.
“At Amazon, we looked a lot at humanoids,” Porter says. “There are real problems that need to be solved with something more human, but jumping to a humanoid is very complicated. AI doesn’t really have it yet.”
Instead, Proxie can replace more and more uncomplicated tasks that people often don’t want to do. Erez Agmoni, general partner at Interbuilt Ventures, which was involved in bringing the Cobot pilot to Maersk, says the solution is very promising and has the potential for expansion.
“The main reason is the ability to use collaborative robots to support teams without having to make massive modifications to the warehouse or current equipment,” he says. “The team hated having to push the carts, which are very heavy, and were happy to have robots do it.”
Fady Saad, founder of Cybernetix, a Boston-based venture capital firm specializing in robotics, says Cobot is tackling a enormous novel category of work that involves moving goods on carts that can be handled using the latest advances in robotics. He adds that it’s crucial for Proxie to evolve into something more capable.
“Porter is trying to build a platform that could evolve into a humanoid along the way,” says Saad. “I think that’s the right approach.”
Porter isn’t the only robotics luminary aiming for something simpler than humanoids. Rodney Brooksa pioneering researcher and co-founder of iRobot, he is currently the chief technology officer of Hearty.AI, a company that makes collaborative mobile robots that can lend a hand people picking in factories and warehouses.
“There is a real need to move things in factories and warehouses, but to think that humanoids will do it in the near future is just crazy,” Brooks says. “Wheels were invented for a reason.”
What kinds of menial tasks would you like a robot to lend a hand you with? Would it matter to you if the robot was humanoid or not? Email me at hello@wired.com to let me know.