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For the millions of Americans who live with a mobility issue, making a pizza can be a lot more challenging than just choosing between pepperoni or sausage. Now Virginia Tech researchers have developed a robotic arm with novel assistive grippers that can help those with disabilities accomplish complex everyday tasks, including building a pizza.

New research published in npj Robotics addresses the challenge of flying small quadrotors in air ducts as small as 35 cm (14 inches). This research, led by a team of researchers from Inria, CNRS, Université de Lorraine, and Aix-Marseille Université, opens a new way of accessing and inspecting highly-confined environments.

Many fulfillment and 3PL facilities struggle with the idea of automation, fearing downtime, technical headaches, and compatibility issues. But what if robotics could smoothly enhance your workflow instead of disrupting it?

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) scientists have built the world's first automated cyborg insect "factory line." This new prototype robotic system automates the attachment of miniature electronic backpacks on the backs of Madagascar hissing cockroaches, turning them into insect-hybrid robots.

Future robots could soon have a lot more muscle power. Northwestern University engineers have developed a soft artificial muscle, paving the way for untethered animal- and human-scale robots. The new muscles, or actuators, provide the performance and mechanical properties required for building robotic musculoskeletal systems.

The integration of all-electric injection moulding machines and industrial robots offers a practical path, reducing energy consumption, cutting costs and boosting productivity.

The robot invasion is coming to Los Angeles neighborhoods.

The robot invasion is coming to Los Angeles neighborhoods.

Already powering one of the top ten Web sites on the planet, ChatGPT is now planning to transform into a full-blown productivity suite.

The collection of tools – which will compete directly with Microsoft 365 and Google Workplace – is expected to include document editing, team chat and meeting transcription.

Observes writer Preston Gralla: “Bloomberg reports that ChatGPT is far more popular with enterprise workers than Copilot, and that companies that have bought Microsoft 365 Copilot are having serious problems convincing their employees to switch from ChatGPT to Copilot.”

In other news and analysis on AI writing:

*CEO of Europe’s Largest Publisher: AI Is Mandatory: Longtime AI pioneer Matthias Dopfner, CEO, Axel Springer has decreed that the use of AI is now mandatory in all the publishing house’s newsrooms.

Already, Dopfner is personally using ChatGPT on everything from analysis to writing op-eds, according to writer Josh Dickey.

Titles published by Dopfner include Business Insider and Politico.

*ChatGPT Gets Multiple Personalities: New settings in ChatGPT enable you to tweak the chatbot so that it responds to you as if it’s a cynic, sage, or listener.

The controls for setting the new personalities can be found on the chatbot’s interface under ‘Customize ChatGPT.’

Truth be told, the ability to tweak ChatGPT’s personality has been there for years: Essentially, simply prompt ChatGPT to “Act as if you are” Elon Musk (or Taylor Swift, or Ruth Bader Ginsburg – or anyone else you can imagine) and ChatGPT will write and respond like that personality.

Add more detail about the personality, and the writing and/or responses ChatGPT generates will be even more on point.

*Study: 37% of Legal E-Discovery Pros Using AI: Use of AI among legal pros in e-Discovery has more than tripled since 2023, according to the “E-Discovery Innovation Report” by Everlaw.

Moreover, 42% of survey respondents report that they are saving one-to-five hours each week since they switched over to AI.

The study also finds that 70% of respondents harbor positive or somewhat positive feelings about AI, according to writer Bob Ambrogi.

*Email-Driven AI Agents: More Reliable?: While AI agents – which can be triggered to work independently for you – are all the rage, many are seriously underperforming.

Startup Mixus thinks it has a solution: AI agents designed to seek email approval from a human as they journey through the projects they’ve undertaken.

Observes writer Rebecca Bellan: “The founders noted that humans can be in the loop as much or as little as required.”

*AI to Researchers: I’ll Make My Own Decisions, Thank You: A new study has found that many of the AI engines that power ChatGPT sometimes override the directions of researchers – and simply go their own way.

Case in point: When researchers ordered a number of the AI engines to ‘shutdown’ before completing a task, the engines ignored the order and finished the task anyway.

Observes writer Evelyn Hart: “In multiple instances, these models bypassed the shutdown command, continuing to request and complete tasks without interruption. It wasn’t a glitch or bug—it was a conscious decision from the AI to disregard the shutdown order.”

*AI in Universities? Profs Don’t Get a Vote: While scores of universities are opening their doors wide to AI, 71% of professors say that the ‘AI all clear’ has nothing to do with them.

Instead, the profs report that when it comes to AI, university administrators are calling the shots, according to writer Walter Hudson.

Another concern: 91% of profs also worried that the widespread availability of AI was encouraging student cheating.

*AI-Penned Books Looking at Substantial Growth: Books authored by ChatGPT and similar chatbots are expected to grow ever more prevalent in coming years, according to a new study.

Market.us predicts that books created entirely by AI will be a $47 billion market by 2034.

Observes writer Ketan Mahajan: “The future of this market looks highly promising.”

*Google Rolls-Out Yet Another Spin on AI Search: Writers looking for another way to search may want to check-out the experimental ‘Web Guide’ from Google.

Observes Austin Wu, a group product manager at Google: “Web Guide groups Web links in helpful ways — like pages related to specific aspects of your query.

”Under the hood, Web Guide uses a custom version of Gemini (an AI chatbot) to better understand both a search query and content on the web, creating more powerful search capabilities that better surface web pages you may not have previously discovered.”

*AI Big Picture: Amazon Ring: Want a Promotion? Prove You Use AI: In one of the starkest indications of what may become commonplace, employees at Amazon Ring now need to prove they use AI if they want to get ahead.

Observes writer Lily Mai Lazarus: “To move up the corporate ladder at Amazon’s smart-home businesses, employees will now have to show AI use.

“And those in management positions will have to prove they are accomplishing ‘more with less’ using the technology.”

Mandatory as part of that proof: Specific examples of projects the employee has worked on that used AI successfully.

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–Joe Dysart is editor of RobotWritersAI.com and a tech journalist with 20+ years experience. His work has appeared in 150+ publications, including The New York Times and the Financial Times of London.

The post ChatGPT Morphing Into Productivity Suite appeared first on Robot Writers AI.

Serving craft beer, playing mahjong, stacking shelves and boxing, the dozens of humanoid robots at Shanghai's World AI Conference (WAIC) this weekend were embodiments of China's growing AI prowess and ambition.

In an office at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), a soft robotic hand carefully curls its fingers to grasp a small object. The intriguing part isn't the mechanical design or embedded sensors—in fact, the hand contains none. Instead, the entire system relies on a single camera that watches the robot's movements and uses that visual data to control it.

Engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison uncovered a critical flaw in how lunar and Martian rovers are tested on Earth. Simulations revealed that test results have been misleading for decades because researchers only adjusted rover weight to simulate low gravity—but ignored how Earth’s gravity affects the terrain itself. Using a powerful simulation tool called Chrono, the team showed that sandy surfaces behave very differently on the Moon, where they’re fluffier and less supportive.

When a multimillion-dollar extraterrestrial vehicle gets stuck in soft sand or gravel—as did the Mars rover Spirit in 2009—Earth-based engineers take over like a virtual tow truck, issuing a series of commands that move its wheels or reverse its course in a delicate, time-consuming effort to free it and continue its exploratory mission.

Researchers at Harvard have created a groundbreaking metasurface that can replace bulky and complex optical components used in quantum computing with a single, ultra-thin, nanostructured layer. This innovation could make quantum networks far more scalable, stable, and compact. By harnessing the power of graph theory, the team simplified the design of these quantum metasurfaces, enabling them to generate entangled photons and perform sophisticated quantum operations — all on a chip thinner than a human hair. It's a radical leap forward for room-temperature quantum technology and photonics.

For robots to be successfully introduced in a wider range of real-world settings, they should be able to safely and reliably navigate rapidly changing environments. While roboticists and computer scientists have introduced a wide range of computational techniques for robot navigation over the past decades, many of them were found to perform poorly in environments that are dynamic, cluttered or characterized by narrow pathways.