No, AI won’t be coming for your soul or turning you into a battery any time soon, and the robots certainly aren’t taking over, at least not from what we saw at CES 2024. There were certainly advancements, and if what we saw at this year’s biggest tech showcase is any indication, bipedal legs are long gone, and balls are in.
Then, of course, wheels are always popular. We saw a slew of autonomous machines meant to act as couriers or stock drivers. However, the dream is still to see a mannequin-like device stroll around with the purpose of helping us humans in our everyday lives—perhaps with the three laws of robotics rattling around in their silicon brains.
Instead, the bots we have now are still relatively rudimentary. There were plenty of roving autonomous lawnmowers and pool cleaners of questionable capabilities from the likes of Aiper and BeatBot, not to mention advancements in robot vacuum tech. We still haven’t seen Tesla’s Optimus bot in person for more than a year, so in the meantime, it feels like we’re still waiting on a real Arobot breakthrough.
However, the next frontier of robots are going to be—ahem—well rounded. Take Samsung’s Ballie, for example. The little round droid first debuted several showcases ago, but the company finally offered us a glimpse of its full capabilities. Gizmodo had the chance a full demo of the device as it helped a guy in his daily tasks, whether that was reminding him of his one-year anniversary, then helping him call up the flower shop to buy his significant other a random assortment of azaleas. Rather than being a replacement for your phone’s digital assistant, it includes an in-built projector that turns any surface of your house into a screen to add a display component to all Ballie’s capabilities.
There are also smaller companies trying to make cute bots a reality. Take the France-based brand Enchanted Tools and its Mirokai bot. It’s a robot with a cartoon, animal-like LED face that looks around its environment with a constant, almost alien-like curiosity. Rolling around on its gyro-stabilized orb, it’s meant to be a helper bot for hospitals or other care facilities with its ability to carry around trays or other items (albeit much more slowly than your average human can move).
Despite all the modern innovations, some of our favorite bots weren’t even meant to showcase the advancements of modern autonomous tech, one of our favorite displays was a simple, miniaturized Robot Wars demo layed out for tech press struggling after long days hoofing it through the halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Sometimes, the best way to unwind after listening to an obscene amount of robot promotion is to literally dismantle an opponent’s bot with large, serrated teeth.
