Introducing Gemini Robotics and Gemini Robotics-ER, AI models designed for robots to understand, act and react to the physical world.

Responsibly advancing AI and robotics

As we explore the continuing potential of AI and robotics, we’re taking a layered, holistic approach to addressing safety in our research, from low-level motor control to high-level semantic understanding.

The physical safety of robots and the people around them is a longstanding, foundational concern in the science of robotics. That’s why roboticists have classic safety measures such as avoiding collisions, limiting the magnitude of contact forces, and ensuring the dynamic stability of mobile robots. Gemini Robotics-ER can be interfaced with these ‘low-level’ safety-critical controllers, specific to each particular embodiment. Building on Gemini’s core safety features, we enable Gemini Robotics-ER models to understand whether or not a potential action is safe to perform in a given context, and to generate appropriate responses.

To advance robotics safety research across academia and industry, we are also releasing a new dataset to evaluate and improve semantic safety in embodied AI and robotics. In previous work, we showed how a Robot Constitution inspired by Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics could help prompt an LLM to select safer tasks for robots. We have since developed a framework to automatically generate data-driven constitutions – rules expressed directly in natural language – to steer a robot’s behavior. This framework would allow people to create, modify and apply constitutions to develop robots that are safer and more aligned with human values. Finally, the new ASIMOV dataset will help researchers to rigorously measure the safety implications of robotic actions in real-world scenarios.

To further assess the societal implications of our work, we collaborate with experts in our Responsible Development and Innovation team and as well as our Responsibility and Safety Council, an internal review group committed to ensure we develop AI applications responsibly. We also consult with external specialists on particular challenges and opportunities presented by embodied AI in robotics applications.

In addition to our partnership with Apptronik, our Gemini Robotics-ER model is also available to trusted testers including Agile Robots, Agility Robots, Boston Dynamics, and Enchanted Tools. We look forward to exploring our models’ capabilities and continuing to develop AI for the next generation of more helpful robots.