Adding Google Gemini to Samsung's Ballie AI robot sounds impressive, but I'm not sure it matters

I’ve watched enough robot videos online to know that slapping an AI model into a hunk of hardware doesn’t automatically make it useful. I remember one clip in particular where someone had wired ChatGPT into a robot dog, and the results were mixed.

Sure, the robot could suddenly answer your questions with confidence. But asking it to open a door or pick something up was still the same clumsy creature as before. The intelligence was in the voice, not the motion.

So, when Samsung announced that its long-awaited Ballie robot would come preloaded with Google’s Gemini AI, my first thought was to wonder what exactly Gemini brings to the table that Ballie hadn’t already promised.

Gemini is capable of understanding language and images and performing complex reasoning. Ballie is supposed to be a rolling companion packed with cameras, projectors, sensors, and the ability to navigate your ...