By Chuck Brooks.
Source: Forbes
Robotics is now revolutionizing numerous industry sectors through the integration of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and reinforcement learning, as well as advances in computer vision that empower robots to make complicated judgments.
Industrial automation in factories and warehouses has been the main emphasis of robotics for many years because of its efficiency and affordability. These settings are usually regulated, organized, and predictable. Consequently, industries like manufacturing, agriculture, warehouse operations, healthcare, and security have utilized robotics to automate mundane programmable tasks.
Robotics in those and many other industries are becoming more refined and capable with the contributions of new material sciences, and artificial intelligence tools. It now appears that with those advances, we are at the precipice of building functional, dexterous, and autonomous humanoid robots that were once the topic of futurist writing.
Researchers from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and Harvard University have experimentally demonstrated that new artificial materials known as metamaterials, with magnetic properties, can have their mechanical and structural behavior reprogrammed without altering their composition. This breakthrough could drive innovations in fields such as soft robotics and biomedicine.
The study explains how flexible magnets embedded within the structure of mechanical metamaterials can be used to reprogram their behavior.
The integration of flexible magnets in metamaterials allows for reprogrammable structures, offering vast potential in robotics and biomedical engineering.
Wouldn’t it be great if music creators had someone to brainstorm with, help them when they’re stuck, and explore different musical directions together? Researchers at KAIST and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) have developed AI technology similar to a fellow songwriter who helps create music.
The work is published in Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
The system developed by Professor Sung-Ju Lee’s research team, Amuse, is an AI-based system that converts various forms of inspiration such as text, images, and audio into harmonic structures (chord progressions) to support composition.
A new study introduces a language-agent framework that translates plain English into quantum chemistry computations, signaling a shift toward more accessible and automated scientific workflows.
Researchers have built an AI system called El Agente Q that integrates large language models (LLMs) with quantum chemistry software to autonomously plan, execute, and explain computational chemistry tasks. The system is capable of understanding general scientific queries, breaking them into step-by-step procedures, selecting the right tools, and solving quantum mechanical problems with minimal human intervention.
A new AI agent uses large language models to autonomously interpret natural language prompts and carry out quantum chemistry computations.
Amazon has a new warehouse robot that, for the first time, can “feel” the items it’s handling. CNBC got an exclusive first look at Vulcan in action at a warehouse in Spokane, Washington, where it stows items in tall yellow bins. Until now, only humans could handle the stowing job, but Amazon says Vulcan will create new jobs instead of eliminating them. Amazon wouldn’t disclose how much it cost to develop Vulcan, but it says it took three years and a team that’s grown to 250 people.
Chapters:
0:00 Introduction.
1:24 Sense of touch.
5:30 Replacing workers?
8:22 Speed, safety and scale.
Produced and shot by: Katie Tarasov.
Edited by: Evan Lee Miller.
Senior Director of Video: Jeniece Pettitt.
Animation: Mallory Brangan.
Additional Footage: Amazon, Getty Images.
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One of AI’s leading researchers has a simple piece of career advice for young people worried about future-proof skills in the ChatGPT era: be curious.
“I think one job that will not be replaced by AI is the ability to be curious and go after hard problems,” Anima Anandkumar, a professor at the California Institute of Technology, said in an interview with EO Studio that aired on Monday.
“So for young people, my advice is not to be afraid of AI or worry what skills to learn that AI may replace them with, but really be in that path of curiosity,” Anandkumar added.
