«Humanoid robots are the new frontier for Italian industry»

The new frontier of artificial intelligence is physical. It involves creating “embodied” models that can read the environment around them to make decisions and act. Technologies designed to be exploited by all industrial robotics supply chains. They will obviously be essential for cars that drive us by themselves, real robots on wheels. And they will be essential for all automatons, specialized or generalist, humanoid or inspired by other forms. For Italy, it is a decisive frontier. How will Italian industrial robotics tackle it? How will the car manufacturers that have remained in Italy explore it? And how will small and medium-sized Italian manufacturers interpret it?

The Italian Institute of Artificial Intelligence for Industry (AI4I), the Turin foundation designed to accelerate the growth of national skills in industrial applications of artificial intelligence, is dealing with this in depth. Yesterday at the OGR in Turin, this was the topic of the first public seminar of the CSP IAS, the Institute for Advanced Study created within the AI4I thanks to the Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation. Speakers included Marco Pavone, the new president of the AI4I Scientific Committee, associate professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University and Senior Director of Autonomous Vehicle Research at NVIDIA, and Riccardo Mariani, Vice President, Safety, at NVIDIA.

Pavone is pragmatic. In the world of physical artificial intelligence, the United States and China are ahead, but for Europe, and Italy, there are important opportunities. But we need to understand what is happening. How does European industrial robotics fit into this context? "Industrial robots are a well-known business, worth many billions. But humanoid robots are a potential business worth thousands of billions," explains Pavone. "In this context, spaces are important for building infrastructures and highly profitable applications, and there are excellent opportunities for Italians too."

Of course, it's about changing. "One of the strengths of industrial robotics manufacturers is that over many years of experience they have accumulated exceptional knowledge and data, which could prove essential for the development of new models." And the sports cars that are produced in Italy? "I know those companies well. They will probably want to introduce semi-automatic systems, but not replace the driver's experience." These are driving assistance systems that increase safety, but do not allow the car to completely take over the driving. "The business of fully autonomous cars is developing rather in the form of new public transport services, as in the case of driverless taxis in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix." Developments consistent with the strategy of those who conceive artificial intelligence as an infrastructural technology that Pavone believes is a winner. The greatest opportunities are to be found in this context: probably by offering data sources, specialized mechanical skills, design, and application ideas that are yet to be imagined.

In this context, large language models (LLM) are the forms of artificial intelligence that have seen the greatest development in recent years. And they can also be used in robotics. «The applications of LLM in this sector range from writing software for on-board systems of robots to providing sophisticated reasoning systems to deal with complex situations. They can even become useful as parallel control systems, to monitor the efficiency of autopilots and recognize anomalies».