WASHINGTON (7News) — It’s not every day that robotics experts from academia, industry, and government are together in one room. At the AI+Robotics Summit organized by the Special Competitive Studies Project in D.C., experts gathered to focus on the future.
7News’ Lindsey Mastis covers AI and moderated a panel discussion on “The Shape of the Robotics Innovation Ecosystem.” Panelists talked about everything from robotics in defense to agriculture.
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Some of the robots on display at the summit included Spot from Boston Dynamics, and ANYmal from ANYbotics. They’re being designed to protect humans from harm.
Abby Kukura, Director of Future Technology Platforms at the Special Competitive Studies Project, said AI is driving technological innovation.
“I think what this conference has really shown me is that a robot is really a general purpose technology. This is everything from autonomous vehicles to smart factories to humanoid robots to inspection warehouse robots. There’s no single form factor for what a robot is and what it looks like,” she said. “There are many things that we interact with on a daily basis that are actually robots.”
Some of the big topics include using robots to bring manufacturing back to the United States, making farms safer and more efficient, and finding life in outer space.