OpenAI has disbanded its dedicated robotics team

The company OpenAI has liquidated its dedicated robotics division for the second time in its history. Researchers from this team will be reassigned to other departments within the organization.

The reason for this decision is the development of general-purpose multimodal generative models. Experts estimate that such systems are capable of controlling robots directly, making the existence of highly specialized AI units redundant.

The company claims that the reorganization does not mean shutting down the field, but is intended to accelerate the implementation of robotics developments. Previously, as part of these efforts, the capabilities of systems like the Astra model were tested in home robot scenarios.

The shift to controlling robots using universal base models could change the approach to creating autonomous devices, reducing the need to train individual, highly specialized neural networks for specific hardware.