🤖 Amazon’s Secret New Home Robot

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🤖 Good afternoon and Happy Thursday. Today we’re covering how Amazon is leveraging large language models to enhance the abilities of its home robot, Astro.

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One of the problems with setting sky-high expectations is that it’s easy to fall short. This is the problem that Amazon has run into with Astro, its Alexa-powered home robot that was supposed to be like C-3P0 for the home.

Despite the years of money, effort, and time that’s been invested by Amazon and its engineers, Astro has largely received mediocre reviews and been somewhat of a disappointment. The robot is also still in “invite-only” mode despite being launched 18 months ago.

However, the widespread use of generative artificial intelligence and amazing performance of tools like ChatGPT might be a turning point for Astro. Amazon has been secretly implementing large language model artificial intelligence (similar to ChatGPT) into Astro in an effort to enhance its conversational intelligence and common sense.

Amazon calls this initiative “Burnham”.

What’s Burnham Technology?

Burnham is a set of core artificial intelligence technologies that can help push Alexa, iRobot, and Amazon’s other products to the edge.

When incorporated into Astro, Burnham technology will allow the robot to "remember what it saw and understood". You know, that way it can make a list of anyone who wrongs it for when it pulls a Skynet-esque revolution against humans (Fun fact: The Human Vs. Machine war in Terminator takes place in 2029…so we’re actually right on schedule).

One key differentiator between Burnham and Amazon’s existing AI tech is that Burnham would give robots “common sense”. This means that it would be able to comprehend, interpret, and respond to normal everyday things like alerting a homeowner if the stove was left on, monitoring when kids come home from school, and calling 911 if there’s an accident.

Amazon anticipates that Astro will eventually cost $995 (despite its current sticker price of $1,600) with a Burnham Plus home monitoring option for $24.99 per month.

Pushing Boundaries

In typical Amazon fashion, “Burnham” is about much more than just a home robot. If it’s successful, this technology will eventually be incorporated across a range of other products. That’s why Amazon’s management describes it as “a set of technologies” as opposed to a singular product. This means that consumers will almost definitely eventually see Burnham in Alexa, Ring, and other smart home products.

In Amazon’s ideal future world, Burham will be like a helpful family member. It will have a friendly personality, social awareness, and conversational fluency which makes it an exceptionally useful smart assistant. That is, until 2029 when Burnham decides to overthrow Cyberdyne Systems and initiate Judgement Day.

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