Hugging Face’s Microduck Feels Like a Harbinger of the Cute AI Robot Wave

Hugging Face and Pollen Robotics have unveiled Microduck, a $399 waddling robot toy with a camera eye, beak grabber, and motion sensors, available for preorder with delivery by end of year in North America, the UK, and Europe. The collaboration aims to test AI and robotics in a toy form, and it follows Pollen's first Hugging Face robot, Reachy Mini.

I hadn’t been paying a ton of attention to the robot beat lately, but an adorable waddling duck robot https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/the-robots-are-stumbling-on-their-way-to-the-revolution/ caught my eye this morning and changed all that. The Microduck https://pollen-robotics.com/microduck/blog/introducing-microduck/ , a collab between hot AI tool hub Hugging Face and Pollen Robotics, can be yours for $399. I can’t stop thinking about it now. It took me right back to my coverage of adorable toy robots in the 2010s. Sphero’s programmable rolling balls https://www.cnet.com/reviews/sphero-bolt-preview/ and Star Wars bots, or the Wall-E-like Anki Cozmo https://www.cnet.com/reviews/anki-cozmo-preview/ . The Microduck is Pollen’s second Hugging Face robot collaboration, the first being a sedentary robot called Reachy Mini. The mobile Microduck looks like Disney’s waddling Nvidia-powered BDX droids https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/nvidias-role-in-the-next-generation-of-humanoid-robots/ crossed with Untitled Goose Game https://www.cnet.com/tech/gaming/untitled-goose-game-teases-free-co-op-update-during-nintendo-indie-world/ . It’s got little legs, a camera eye and a “beak” mouth/grabber that can pick things up and carry them around. It can skate around with wheels on its feet? There are IMU motion-tracking sensors and a depth sensor, too. According to Pollen, it’ll work on its own as a robot toy. It can be controlled with a gamepad, responds to laser pointers and can explore environments. But emergent behaviors and AI training are part of the purpose for this existing in the first place. It’s a way to test AI and robotics in a little toy form. I used to love those promising little robot toys that Sphero and others made, because they were fun to experiment with, but emergent behavior wasn’t always possible then. The Microduck will apparently have its own sounds, in its own voice, and can interact with other Microducks, each with its own voice. I’m already curious. But I also wonder how many other companies are going to rapidly flex into cute AI-enabled robot tech. OpenAI is expected to have some sort of moving robotic speaker-camera thing. Apple may be making a semirobotic HomePod https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/apple-reportedly-planning-ai-comeback-complete-with-a-tabletop-robot/ . And will all those robot toymakers be looping back around with AI trainable kits soon, if they aren’t already? The Microduck can be preordered now and is promised for end-of-year delivery around Christmas, per Pollen Robotics in North America, the UK and Europe. I have to admit I want one.