Behind Many Robots, a Human Operator Toils

When Nvidia wanted to show off software for developing artificial intelligence at its flagship customer conference in March, it brought out a Star Wars–inspired robot that bobbed its head as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang talked to it. “Stand right here,” said Huang, pointing to his side, and the knee-high robot waddled to the spot, receiving cheers and applause from the audience.

What Huang didn’t say was that “a puppeteer behind the scenes” was controlling the robot, according to a blog post from Disney, which developed it. The robot learned how to balance and walk in Nvidia’s computer simulation, but the human directed when and where it should go during its minuteslong cameo, according to a Disney spokesperson.