OpenAI’s frontier intelligence model GPT-6 Astra has completed the Orc starting area in World of Warcraft in about 40 minutes without processing a single rendered game frame, according to the developer of the open-source agent-wow project.

Instead of seeing the game through screenshots or computer vision, the AI reconstructed its environment from server network messages and game data, then built its own tools to navigate and play.

The experiment was conducted on a private local server running AzerothCore, not Blizzard’s live World of Warcraft service. The developer gave Codex, running GPT-6 Astra at its high reasoning setting, a single instruction: create an Orc character and complete all quests in the starting zone. The agent reportedly finished the run without dying.

Reading the game’s network traffic

The unusual part of the experiment is how little conventional game automation was provided to the model. Agent-wow does not use computer vision, screenshots, or direct keyboard and mouse controls. Instead, it allows an AI agent to communicate with the game server through World of Warcraft’s network protocol, Tom’s Hardware reported.

The project also does not provide predefined movement, combat, or interaction systems. The agent is expected to build the capabilities it needs through modules. During the run, GPT-6 Astra created a module that could process dozens of different server messages and keep the resulting information in memory. A Python script then used those messages to construct the model’s view of what was happening in the game and send actions back to the server.

That meant the model could determine things such as its surroundings, quest progress, and available targets without ever receiving the visual information a human player normally relies on.

The experiment therefore tests something different from simply teaching an AI to recognize a game screen. The model had to reason about a structured but unfamiliar environment using the information available through the game’s underlying protocol.

Astra built its own tools to complete the quests

The agent also had access to AzerothCore’s underlying data, including SQL files containing information about quests, NPCs, and spawn locations. It used those resources to determine where quests started and ended, and how different objectives were connected.

The developer said the model effectively created a plan for completing prerequisite quests in sequence. It also managed routine tasks such as selling unwanted items, equipping better gear, and training abilities before reaching the final cave in the starting area.

Navigation was another problem the agent had to solve, with GPT-6 Astra generating a C++ helper that used AzerothCore’s navigation-mesh data, known as mmaps, to calculate routes. The helper used the Detour pathfinding library to generate waypoints between locations, which the agent could then follow.

The developer said the system even encountered locations where collision information appeared to be incomplete and was able to exploit those map quirks. That makes the result interesting, but also means the run should not be treated as a straightforward test of how well an AI can navigate an unmodified commercial game world.

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How many times have you asked someone to hold open a door while carrying something, or fumbled with your front-door keys with your arms full of groceries? Wouldn't it be great if you could give yourself the extra hand you need?

A four-legged robot that can complete a marathon on a single battery charge has been demonstrated by a team from KAIST. The robot, which completed the Sangju Marathon in South Korea in 4 hours and 19 minutes alongside human runners, traveled three times as far per charge than existing robots and could pave the way for improved battery life in legged robots.

As our skies increasingly crowd with buzzing, hovering, flitting drones, spare a thought for the humble hopping robot. Hopping, a popular form of locomotion in the insect and amphibian worlds, is nearly two orders of magnitude more energy-efficient than flying. Unlike a mosquito that must constantly expend energy to stay aloft, a flea only works out when it jumps.

For many of us, the last—and only—time we've seen a walking hand was Thing in "The Addams Family" movies or TV series. Now there's another. Engineers from the Soft Robotics Lab at ETH Zurich have adapted an off-the-shelf detached robotic hand so it can crawl across different surfaces, balance and interact with its environment.

It turns out that breaking down at work isn't a uniquely human experience.

A research team led by Professor Daehee Park of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at DGIST, in collaboration with a research team from KAIST, has developed a learning technique that enables a single compact AI model to simultaneously predict the movements of nearby people and plan safe navigation paths for robots while reducing performance degradation in both tasks. The research was presented at the 19th European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV 2026) held in Malmö, Sweden, Sept. 8–12. The paper is available on the arXiv preprint server.

Researchers at Durham University have developed a new drone navigation system that enables autonomous aircraft to fly faster, more smoothly and more safely through crowded and obstacle-filled environments. This leads to new possibilities for applications such as search and rescue, infrastructure inspection and environmental monitoring.

Agility Robotics has debuted its first humanoid robot engineered to work safely near humans without risking harm to flesh-and-blood coworkers. Such safety features could unlock many more opportunities to use such robots inside warehouses and automotive factories—all without requiring isolated robot work cells and physical separation barriers.

When Agility’s new Digit 5 robot detects a person at a distance, it can autonomously take precautions, like moving to avoid the person or standing still so the person can pass by without getting closer. If a person is getting into close proximity with Digit 5, the robot can even choose to squat and assume a seated position.

“The robot was designed with a complex safe motion system that can take a variety of different mitigations depending on exactly what sort of human presence is detected,” Pras Velagapudi, chief technology officer at Agility, told Ars.

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Aerial drones have become a startlingly common sight on the battlefield. Ukraine, for instance, has been deploying a record number of them as global demand for the often inexpensive and relatively simple to launch devices surges.

But US-based firms are thinking far ahead, envisioning a dystopian “Terminator”-inspired future in which humanoid robot soldiers go to war on behalf of their flesh-and-blood counterparts.

Case in point, San Francisco-based tech company Foundation recently signed a $24 million Pentagon contract to do just that, as the Wall Street Journal reports. While the company’s flagship Phantom MK1 robot, an unsettling matte black apparition, doesn’t appear to be ready to hold a gun or run into open fire on its own any time soon, the Eric Trump-backed company is far from ruling out the idea.

When the tech progresses enough to allow robots to reason and adapt to their behavior, “instead of dropping a bomb in a building, you can send humanoids to actually walk inside that building and go directly to the target,” Foundation CEO Sankaet Pathak told the WSJ.

In an interview last year, Pathak wasn’t willing to rule out the possibility of handing one of its robots a gun, either.

“If you’re first body in and you’re docile, then the enemies are not going to expose themselves,” he said at the time. “So you have to be first body and deadly.”

“If the US military had 100,000 robots that they could just demonstrate working, it would, by and large, end a lot of wars before they start,” Pathak added at the time.

So far, the company has rolled out around ten robots, according to the executive, including “deployments with the Air Force.” Its robots, which can carry up to 80 pounds, have even helped move larger objects in Ukraine, per Pathak.

Foundation is also “gearing up to start building a lot more” of its robots, while using AI and reinforcement learning to teach them new tasks.

In the long run, however, the company appears to be far more interested in colonizing other planets. According to the company’s website, its “master plan” involves building “technologies that make life self-sustaining on Earth and beyond,” closely echoing SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s ambitions.

But before it can get anywhere even remotely close to that, the company has a lot to prove. For one, beyond major technological hurdles still to overcome, it has to convince modern society that deploying deadly humanoid robots doesn’t cross a moral line — which is far easier said than done.

More on humanoid robots: Dozens of Humanoid Robots Gather for a Protest, Marching and Waving Signs

The post These Robot Soldiers Are Getting Downright Terrifying appeared first on Futurism.

China leads the world in churning out humanoid robots and four-legged robot dogs that also happen to be the most affordable on the market—and Unitree Robotics’ founder Wang Xingxing is arguably one of the people most responsible for that Chinese lead.

The introverted founder, who prominently appeared at a 2025 business symposium hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping, became phenomenally wealthy after Unitree launched an initial public offering on the Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market on August 19. But extensive reporting by Beijing-based Caijing Magazine suggests Unitree’s success so far has been driven by Wang’s extreme micromanagement leadership style—an approach that may be more suited to a small startup than a fast-growing robotics company.

Caijing’s interviews with Unitree employees and investors paint a picture of Wang as someone who personally decides nearly every aspect of corporate strategy or product design, including the colors of materials and lengths of individual screws. The Caijing Magazine feature published on August 31, titled “The King of Unitree,” was translated into English by ChinaTalk, a US-based think tank and media organization, on September 10.

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China leads the world in churning out humanoid robots and four-legged robot dogs that also happen to be the most affordable on the market—and Unitree Robotics’ founder Wang Xingxing is arguably one of the people most responsible for that Chinese lead.

The introverted founder, who prominently appeared at a 2025 business symposium hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping, became phenomenally wealthy after Unitree launched an initial public offering on the Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market on August 19. But extensive reporting by Beijing-based Caijing Magazine suggests Unitree’s success so far has been driven by Wang’s extreme micromanagement leadership style—an approach that may be more suited to a small startup than a fast-growing robotics company.

Caijing’s interviews with Unitree employees and investors paint a picture of Wang as someone who personally decides nearly every aspect of corporate strategy or product design, including the colors of materials and lengths of individual screws. The Caijing Magazine feature published on August 31, titled “The King of Unitree,” was translated into English by ChinaTalk, a US-based think tank and media organization, on September 10.

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Japan’s GMO is launching a mobile humanoid repair service as businesses test robots in airports, stations, and other real-world workplaces.

Join us for conversations about the tech, policies and business models required to build a functioning in-orbit logistics ecosystem

The post Sept. 21: What Comes Next for On-Orbit Servicing? appeared first on SpaceNews.

Philippine surgeons completed historic robotic telesurgeries across a reported 1,380 km, showing the potential of long-distance remote surgery.

On a sunny morning in June, I walked to work with a quadruped robot beside me. I’ve never gotten more attention from strangers.

A bunch of people snapped pictures of my robot dog. Several people asked me questions. Was it mine? (Yes.) Did I build it? (No.) Was it being used for surveillance? (No.)

Biological dogs kept a safe distance from my mechanical companion. Some growled or barked at it.

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“Can you shed tears for me?” a visitor asked. “Of course,” the robot replied, and its eyes welled up on command. That brief exchange became one of the standout moments at the 2026 Inclusion Conference on the Bund in Shanghai. A bionic emotion-sensing robot demonstrated its ability to physically cry in response to a simple spoken request, catching visitors off guard with just how natural the reaction looked.

The robot is built on a three-layer technical architecture designed specifically to generate convincing human emotional responses rather than simple pre-programmed animations. Its ability to produce tears on cue points to a deeper engineering goal: making robotic emotional expression feel spontaneous and responsive, rather than scripted.

Two facial technologies

Traditional systems used to animate robotic faces rely on servo motors. Those motors physically pull silicone facial skin into different shapes to generate expressions like smiles, frowns, or surprise. That approach has powered most emotionally expressive robots shown publicly in China over the past two years, letting them blink, glance around, and shift expression in real time.

The next generation of the technology moves beyond that mechanical pulling system entirely. Developers plan to add bionic muscles beneath the robot’s synthetic skin. That shift is meant to let the robot generate a meaningfully wider range of facial expressions than servo-driven skin alone can produce. Rather than a limited set of pre-built expression shapes, muscle-based actuation could let the face shift more continuously and naturally between emotional states.

Producing actual tears, as the robot did during its conference demonstration, adds a physiological layer on top of that facial architecture. Rather than relying on expression alone, generating a genuine fluid response mimics one of the most recognizably human signals of emotion. That signal is difficult to convincingly fake through mechanical movement alone.

A bigger tech showcase

The robot appeared as part of a wider technology exhibition running alongside the conference. That exhibition spanned nearly 15,000 square meters and drew more than 300 science and technology exhibitors. The 2026 Inclusion Conference on the Bund ran under the theme “Building the AI Economy Together.” It featured a main forum alongside more than 40 sub-forums exploring different facets of China’s expanding AI industry.

Emotionally expressive robots have become an increasingly prominent showcase at major Chinese technology events over the past year. That trend reflects a broader industry push to make human-robot interaction feel more natural and less mechanical.

Whether audiences respond to a crying robot with genuine emotional engagement or simple curiosity, demonstrations like this one carry a clear signal. Chinese robotics developers are now investing seriously in the physical, physiological details of emotional expression, not just the underlying artificial intelligence driving it.

General Robotics says GRID automates robot onboarding, simulation, training, testing, and deployment across the robot development lifecycle.