Raphael Thys
Image: Beyond Imagination
As the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2022 is set to begin on January 5, several new technologies ranging from smart devices to renewable power generators are ready to be showcased. Interestingly, another next-generation device to be unveiled in the Las Vegas event is the Beomni 1.0 robot that is being endorsed as one of the most sophisticated general-purpose humanoid robots on the planet. Built by a US-based firm Beyond Imagination, the robot has been developed to provide assistance to humans using artificial intelligence.
What makes the robot so special?
According to the company, the Beomni 1.0 robot can be controlled by humans for minor tasks but it will eventually gain autonomy using artificial intelligence. Mounted over wheels, the robot is capable of carrying out tasks as delicate as picking up a pinch of salt and as hectic as moving weights up to 30 kilograms. In addition to this, toughness is another feature of the robot as the company has designed it to travel even through sand, mud, and snow. In the video shared above, the robot can be seen carrying out tasks such as opening a bottle of soft drink and even precisely giving an injection. One of the coolest advantages that the robot provides is that it can even be controlled by a user from a totally different location, as seen in the video, making distance no longer an issue.
"Beomni will operate in a limitless number of verticals from medical and complex fine motor control manufacturing tasks to working in agriculture, logistics, and eventually space construction", the company says. Moreover, it also revealed that the robot can operate for four hours straight on a single charge, a capacity that will be soon be increased to eight hours. In an interview with Daily Mail, company founder Harry Kloor said that the robots currently cost around $1,48,000 but once its enters the mass production stage, their price will be driven down to around $67,000.
The idea of AI taking over the world is silly, says Kloor
It is worth mentioning that Kloor himself was born with a leg deformity and building robots for human service has been his lifelong dream. While many say that robots driven by artificial intelligence will take over the world, Kloor states that the idea seems 'silly' to him. "If we can move human talent around the world instantly by occupying a robot, there's an unlimited number of things you can do", Kloor told Daily Mail. He even said that his robots could have saved many lives during the pandemic by providing medical assistance, had they been distributed around the world.