Boston Dynamics’ humanoid robot handles annoying co-worker gracefully

Boston Dynamics, in collaboration with the Toyota Research Institute (TRI), has made significant advancements in its humanoid robot Atlas by developing a Large Behavior Model (LBM). This new system, trained on extensive datasets of human actions, enables Atlas to understand, generate, and adapt complex human behaviors in real-world settings without the need for laborious hand-coding. A recently released video demonstrates Atlas performing precise human-like tasks such as picking up and transferring objects, walking, crouching, and organizing items, albeit at a somewhat slow pace. Notably, the robot maintained focus and completed its tasks despite repeated disturbances from a human, showcasing improved robustness and adaptability. The integration of LBMs represents a paradigm shift in robotics, allowing new skills to be added quickly through human demonstrations rather than traditional programming. According to Boston Dynamics and TRI executives, this approach enhances generalization across long-horizon manipulation tasks and whole-body control, potentially transforming how robots operate in existing environments. The project, co-led by Scott Kuinders