In 2021, Amazon presented Astro, its intelligent domestic robot that can walk around your home and be asked questions. But its "intelligence" remains limited, and Amazon would like to fix that. The company is reportedly working on an option based on a language model, the same technology used by ChatGPT.
In September 2021, Amazon presented Astro, a cute little household robot. Its purpose: to act as an assistant, but also to move around the house to keep an eye on things. This artificial intelligence tool was limited, however, as it had a tendency to throw itself down the stairs, and is still not officially on the shelves. Amazon is said to have a project to improve Astro: Burnham. It would be a conversational interface, like ChatGPT.
Amazon wants a little more ChatGPT in its Astro robot
Business Insider has obtained internal Amazon documents concerning a secret project called "Burnham". The aim is to add a layer of "intelligence and a conversational interface". The project is said to comprise a technology called "Contextual Understanding" and is described in the documents by Amazon as its "latest and most advanced AI technology, designed to make robots smarter, more useful and more conversational".
This technology, based on a large language model (LLM), would be able to remember what it has seen and take it into account in its interactions. This technology is similar to GPT-4, the system that powers ChatGPT and Bing Chat, among others; or to PaLM 2, the Google model that powers its Bard chatbot.
Amazon should even upload a touch of autonomy, as Burnham would take motion based on what he sees. Business Insider writes that "if Burnham notices that a stove has been left on or a water tap is running unattended, it'll discover the home owner and bring the hassle to their attention". Burnham may also check that home windows are closed, stumble on falls, check who is getting into the house, and many others.
A smarter Astro in the marketplace?
A commonplace practice at Amazon is to write down ability press releases even before its products and services are finalized. One such release describes Astro as a robot priced at $995. An alternative referred to as "Burhman Plus" would be priced at $24.Ninety nine per month and would upload surveillance functions. An offer coupled with Amazon's Ring surveillance digicam could cost $34.Ninety nine a month.
Until now, Astro has honestly been powered by using Alexa, however Amazon's voice assistant is reportedly the subject of fierce internal grievance. After billions of dollars of investment and a nevertheless shaky business model, the tool is said never to have lived as much as Amazon's expectations. Beyond Alexa, Astro is also the target of criticism within Amazon. Officially, an Amazon spokesperson informed Business Insider that Astro "is off to a very promising begin", with out giving any income figures. He says that his corporation is worked up "via the potential of generative AI technology" and that they might assist "invent new reports for Astro that delight clients and make their lives even less complicated in the destiny".
How technology like ChatGPT may want to revolutionize Alexa?
In the sphere of generative synthetic intelligence, Microsoft and Google are leading the race launched a few months ago. But Amazon isn't to be outdone: with its Bedrock venture, the multinational intends to help groups round the arena expand in this area.
Beyond that, it's also Alexa that could be remodeled extensive, way to the use of a large-scale language model. Many within the employer are said to be confident approximately integrating such era into Alexa, seeing that it would make the assistant a great deal "smarter". In this recognize, Business Insider has also been capable of seek advice from some of documents revealing numerous examples of the usage of generative AI with Alexa.
The advantage of LLM-based artificial intelligence is that it can perform more complex tasks and goes beyond simply detecting an event, including being able to make predictions. According to Business Insider, "the documents show that they [LLMs] are now able to handle more complex tasks, such as detecting broken glass on the floor and knowing that shards of glass are dangerous and need to be swept up before someone steps on them." In the future, Burnham could be integrated into products other than Astro, for example in other domestic robots. However, Burnham's arrival still seems a long way off: Amazon would still have a lot of work to do before arriving at a marketable version.
0 Comments