(Web Desk) - A Swedish inventor has built a ChatGPT-powered robot in the hope of showing the world that artificial intelligence (AI) isn't evil.
There's no easy way to get through a separation, but instead of throwing themselves at work, or binge watching Netflix for weeks, one Redditor decided to distract themselves by learning to build a robot.
The result is Rob, an expressive hand-built bot brought to life using electronics and ChatGPT.
Although Rob isn't quite at the point where it could perform an elaborate parkour routine like Boston Dynamic's frighteningly impressive ATLAS can, its creator, who goes by the pseudonym 'MrRandom93' on Reddit, has already managed to create a robot with an engaging personality that's also capable of recognizing and describing the world around it — just check out the video above.
Built around a Raspberry Pi —an affordable but highly capable microcomputer— a rechargeable battery, servos to bring its head movements to life, touch sensors, and a small OLED screen displaying a pair of animated eyes, Rob's intelligence and responsiveness are made possible by interfacing with the AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT.
The robot can respond to questions, including the brief interview with The Messenger that you can see at the top of this story.
Using the Raspberry Pi's camera module it can 'see' the world around it with the assistance of ChatGPT's descriptive capabilities.
In one video Rob is shown a classic Nokia cellphone, which it describes as a "digital device." A little vague, but it's hard to imagine a 10-year-old knowing knowing what a vintage Nokia 3310 is either.
MrRandom93 has been working on Rob on and off for the past few years, and while it started off as a way to learn about robotics and coding, they now hope that Rob serves as an entertaining example of how AI can be used for good, to help balance out other concerning applications of the technology.