The Universal Robot of the 21st Century

The paper „The Universal Robot of the 21st Century“ by Oliver Bendel was published in February 2025 in the proceedings volume „Social Robots with AI: Prospects, Risks, and Responsible Methods“ … From the abstract: „Developments in several areas of computer science, robotics, and social robotics make it seem likely that a universal robot will be available in the foreseeable future. Large language models for communication, perception, and control play a central role in this. This article briefly outlines the developments in the various areas and uses them to create the overall image of the universal robot. It then discusses the associated challenges from an ethical and social science perspective. It can be said that the universal robot will bring with it new possibilities and will perhaps be one of the most powerful human tools in physical space. At the same time, numerous problems are foreseeable, individual, social, and ecological.“ The proceedings volume comprises the papers presented at Robophilosophy 2024 in Aarhus. Leading philosophers, computer scientists and roboticists met there in August. Like the ICSR, the conference is one of the world’s leading conferences on social robotics.

Fig.: The conference gala dinner took place in this building

Goodbye Atlas, Hello Atlas

In recent years, a large number of quadruped and bipedal robots have been created. Many of them were inspired by Spot and Atlas from Boston Dynamics. These, in turn, can be traced back to Sparko and Elektro, which became famous around 1940. Atlas paved the way for the so-called general-purpose or universal robots that are now conquering the market, from H1 to Figure 01. They are not yet truly universal, but they are getting there. In these dynamic and productive times, the company, which is part of the Hyundai Motor Group, announces the end of the hydraulic version of the humanoid robot. A post on LinkedIn from April 17, 2024 states: „Atlas has sparked our imagination, inspired new roboticists, and leapt over technical barriers. Now it’s time for our hydraulic Atlas robot to kick back and relax. Take a look at everything we’ve accomplished with the Atlas platform to date.“ (Boston Dynamics, 17 April 2024) At the end of the video, it says that one could meet again. This immediately raised hopes of a successor. In fact, Boston Dynamics presented an electric, extremely mobile version on its blog just a few hours later. The title of the article is: „An Electric New Era for Atlas“.

Fig.: A screenshot from the video of the electric version (Image: Boston Dynamics)