Source: Innovation Beat: By Aaron Pressman, Globe Staff 

Now the 75-year-old is running a private research lab in Kendall Square working on some of the knottiest problems in robotics, including how to use the latest generative AI software that powers apps like ChatGPT to make machines able to learn from their environment without specific instruction.

The Robotics and AI Institute, funded by Boston Dynamics owner Hyundai Motor Group, opened in 2022 and now has 260 employees working on a range of challenges.

One project, dubbed the ultra mobile vehicle, looks like a dirt bike on steroids and can drive itself around without human guidance or GPS and leap over obstacles. Another effort called “Watch, Understand, Do” aims to develop AI software to train robots just by watching a human perform multi-step tasks like repairing a bicycle.

The institute’s projects sit in between academic research and more commercially focused efforts at companies like Amazon or Boston Dynamics, according to Tom Ryden, executive director of Boston nonprofit MassRobotics. The work could lead to many new applications for robots and helps “ensure Massachusetts is the hub of robotics,” Ryden said.

Over the summer, Raibert set up a pop-up robotics exhibit in an unused space at the CambridgeSide mall, a short walk from his office. Wearing a black and green Hawaiian shirt that’s become a standard part of his daily attire, Raibert showed a reporter around on a scorching day when tourists in the area were happy to duck into the air-conditioned mall and check out the exhibit.

The setup included some of Raibert’s early robot prototypes as well as Atlas, the humanoid robot Boston Dynamics made famous doing Parkour in YouTube videos.

There’s also a slightly rebranded Spot robot covered in the purple and green Hawaiian patterns of Raibert’s shirts that have become the institute’s decorative standard. Visitors can control Spot using buttons to make the robot walk over obstacles and perform simple tricks. The free exhibit is scheduled to run through August 15.

Raibert said the pop-up was inspired by the way ordinary people have reacted with joy and interest to seeing his robots over the years. And he wanted to combat negative stereotypes from movies and TV shows (see the Terminator, Ultron, and all those killer cowboy robots from Westworld).

“Hollywood has a narrow take on it,” he said. “We’ve never had anybody go running out because they were afraid of it, even though that’s sort of the standard storyline out there.”

Boston Dynamics and many rivals including Tesla are focusing now on humanoid robots, with Elon Musk making big claims about a future with billions of machines working as automated assistants in every home.

Raibert is more restrained in his enthusiasm. “It’ll be in factories first, I don’t think it’ll be in homes for a while,” he said. And he thinks the machines won’t all resemble the human body. Some may have four legs or one big arm or wheels, he said.

“Most people think if it’s got two arms, two legs, and a head, it’s a humanoid,” he said. “But what really makes a thing human-like is its intelligence, its perception, its ability to understand the world around it.”

Martin Allen, a computer science student visiting from Scotland, was impressed after he played with Spot at the pop-up. “He’s really cool, it’s so awesome,“ Allen said.

People of all ages, from small children to elderly adults, have stopped by to watch the robot at a rate of more than 1,000 per week, staffers at the exhibit said. One woman even started dancing along with the four-legged bot, Raibert recalled.

“I’m a robot lover,” he said. “So it’s just great fun seeing other people engage with it and seeing if we can generate future generations of robot lovers.”