Latest news with #ThomasWolf
TechCrunch
16-07-2025
- Business
- TechCrunch
Hugging Face bets on cute robots to bring open-source AI to life
Just five days after opening up orders on its Reachy Mini robots, AI developer platform Hugging Face says it has logged $1 million worth of sales. That's not a bad start for a company that's just recently expanded into robotics, and is largely known for letting developers download open source AI models off the internet. On this episode of Equity, Hugging Face co-founder and chief scientist Thomas Wolf breaks down where he sees the company's robotics going. While other startups tackling robots for the home — such as Figure and 1X — want their robots to offload some of your chores, Hugging Face sees the Reachy Mini as more of a hackable, entertainment device. The device is small enough to fit on your desk, has two misshapen eyes with cameras behind them, as well as microphones, speakers, a head that bobs around, and a pair of antennas for robot ears. It's designed to come with some preset apps, but also lets people build their own apps that can run locally through open source software. Eventually, Hugging Face would like to build out a network of apps for Reachy Mini. Wolf even described the Reachy Mini as 'a bit like an empty iPhone,' hinting at how massive he thinks this market is. The Reachy Mini has gone somewhat viral since launch, largely thanks to its friendly and open design, but also its relatively accessible price point that lets consumers try out an AI-powered robot this year. Wolf says that's a key part to this launch — making something people want to see on their desk everyday, and can actually afford. Wolf describes the Reachy Mini as an entry point for getting consumers to be comfortable with robots in their home, and earning their trust. We got into more of that on the show. I was initially skeptical of the Reachy Mini, but I've started to come around to it. I think Wolf and Hugging Face's vision for the AI device makes seems fun, and seems like a great way for kids or people know to open source software to learn about the space. Wolf also says he's interested to see if people will vibe code apps for their robots, an idea I'm fascinated by and slightly scared of. At other points on the show, Wolf takes listeners inside Hugging Face's acquisition of the french robotics startup, Pollen, and his insistence on developing a robot at a low price point. Wolf also believes that open source AI will play a similar role in robotics as it has in software, and he's trying to position Hugging Face to capture that interest. Later in the episode, we also get into: How Hugging Face plans to leap from software to hardware. Hugging Face's ambitions to one day sell a full-sized humanoid robot. The role of privacy in consumer robotics, and how open-source can address it. Equity is TechCrunch's flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Hugging Face Looks to Open-Source AI Robotics
Thomas Wolf, Hugging Face co-founder and chief scientist, says they're excited to see the community create new apps as they launch their new open-sourced desktop AI robot. He joins Romaine Bostick on "Bloomberg Tech" to discuss.
Bloomberg
11-07-2025
- Bloomberg
Hugging Face Looks to Open-Source AI Robotics
Thomas Wolf, Hugging Face co-founder and chief scientist, says they're excited to see the community create new apps as they launch their new open-sourced desktop AI robot. He joins Romaine Bostick on "Bloomberg Tech" to discuss. (Source: Bloomberg)
Yahoo
27-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Hugging Face Co-Founder Challenges AI Optimists: 'Models Can't Ask Original Scientific Questions'
Thomas Wolf, co-founder and chief science officer at Hugging Face, has cast doubt on the belief that current artificial intelligence systems will lead to major scientific breakthroughs. Wolf told Fortune that today's large language models, or LLMs, excel at providing answers but fall short when it comes to formulating original questions. 'In science, asking the question is the hard part,' he said. 'Once the question is asked, often the answer is quite obvious, but the tough part is really asking the question, and models are very bad at asking great questions.' Don't Miss: GoSun's breakthrough rooftop EV charger already has 2,000+ units reserved — become an investor in this $41.3M clean energy brand today. Invest early in CancerVax's breakthrough tech aiming to disrupt a $231B market. Back a bold new approach to cancer treatment with high-growth potential. Wolf's comments were in response to a blog post by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who argues that artificial intelligence could compress a century's worth of scientific breakthroughs into just a few years. Wolf said he initially found the post compelling but became skeptical after rereading. 'It was saying AI is going to solve cancer, and it's going to solve mental health problems—it's going to even bring peace into the world. But then I read it again and realized there's something that sounds very wrong about it, and I don't believe that,' he told Fortune. San Francisco-based Anthropic is backed by tech giants, including Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG, GOOGL)), and is also known for its Claude family of AI models. For Wolf, the core issue lies in how LLMs are trained. In another blog post, Wolf argues that today's AI systems are built to predict likely outcomes, act as "yes-men on servers," capable of mimicking human responses but incapable of challenging assumptions or generating original ideas. "To create an Einstein in a data center, we don't just need a system that knows all the answers, but rather one that can ask questions nobody else has thought of or dared to ask," Wolf wrote. He cited that real scientific progress often comes from paradigm shifts—like Copernicus proposing heliocentrism or the invention of CRISPR-based gene editing—rather than from answering existing questions. Trending: This Jeff Bezos-backed startup will allow you to become a landlord in just 10 minutes, with minimum investments as low as $100. Wolf also questioned how AI performance is measured today. In his blog post, he pointed to benchmarks like Humanity's Last Exam or Frontier Math, which test how well AI models can answer complex but well-defined questions. "These are exactly the kinds of exams where I excelled," Wolf wrote, referencing his academic background. "But real scientific breakthroughs come not from answering known questions, but from asking challenging new ones and questioning previous ideas." He argued that AI needs to demonstrate the ability to challenge its training data, take counterfactual approaches, and identify new research directions from incomplete information. Using the board game Go as an analogy, Wolf said the landmark 2016 victory of DeepMind's AlphaGo over world champions made headlines but was not revolutionary. "Move 37, while impressive, is still essentially a straight-A student answer to the question posed by the rules of the game of Go," he wrote in his blog. "An Einstein-level breakthrough in Go would involve inventing the rules of Go itself." Hugging Face is a prominent open-source platform in the AI community, known for its collaborative development of open-source machine learning models and tools. The company is backed by investors including Sequoia Capital and Lux Capital, and it plays a leading role in developing transparent and accessible AI systems. Wolf concluded that while current models are useful as assistants, true scientific progress requires a different kind of intelligence—one that can formulate disruptive questions rather than repeat what is already known. See Next: $100k in assets? Maximize your retirement and cut down on taxes: Schedule your free call with a financial advisor to start your financial journey – no cost, no obligation. Warren Buffett once said, "If you don't find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die." Here's how you can earn passive income with just $100. UNLOCKED: 5 NEW TRADES EVERY WEEK. Click now to get top trade ideas daily, plus unlimited access to cutting-edge tools and strategies to gain an edge in the markets. Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? (AMZN): Free Stock Analysis Report ALPHABET (GOOG): Free Stock Analysis Report This article Hugging Face Co-Founder Challenges AI Optimists: 'Models Can't Ask Original Scientific Questions' originally appeared on © 2025 Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
27-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Hugging Face Co-Founder Challenges AI Optimists: 'Models Can't Ask Original Scientific Questions'
Thomas Wolf, co-founder and chief science officer at Hugging Face, has cast doubt on the belief that current artificial intelligence systems will lead to major scientific breakthroughs. Wolf told Fortune that today's large language models, or LLMs, excel at providing answers but fall short when it comes to formulating original questions. 'In science, asking the question is the hard part,' he said. 'Once the question is asked, often the answer is quite obvious, but the tough part is really asking the question, and models are very bad at asking great questions.' Don't Miss: GoSun's breakthrough rooftop EV charger already has 2,000+ units reserved — become an investor in this $41.3M clean energy brand today. Invest early in CancerVax's breakthrough tech aiming to disrupt a $231B market. Back a bold new approach to cancer treatment with high-growth potential. Wolf's comments were in response to a blog post by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who argues that artificial intelligence could compress a century's worth of scientific breakthroughs into just a few years. Wolf said he initially found the post compelling but became skeptical after rereading. 'It was saying AI is going to solve cancer, and it's going to solve mental health problems—it's going to even bring peace into the world. But then I read it again and realized there's something that sounds very wrong about it, and I don't believe that,' he told Fortune. San Francisco-based Anthropic is backed by tech giants, including Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG, GOOGL)), and is also known for its Claude family of AI models. For Wolf, the core issue lies in how LLMs are trained. In another blog post, Wolf argues that today's AI systems are built to predict likely outcomes, act as "yes-men on servers," capable of mimicking human responses but incapable of challenging assumptions or generating original ideas. "To create an Einstein in a data center, we don't just need a system that knows all the answers, but rather one that can ask questions nobody else has thought of or dared to ask," Wolf wrote. He cited that real scientific progress often comes from paradigm shifts—like Copernicus proposing heliocentrism or the invention of CRISPR-based gene editing—rather than from answering existing questions. Trending: This Jeff Bezos-backed startup will allow you to become a landlord in just 10 minutes, with minimum investments as low as $100. Wolf also questioned how AI performance is measured today. In his blog post, he pointed to benchmarks like Humanity's Last Exam or Frontier Math, which test how well AI models can answer complex but well-defined questions. "These are exactly the kinds of exams where I excelled," Wolf wrote, referencing his academic background. "But real scientific breakthroughs come not from answering known questions, but from asking challenging new ones and questioning previous ideas." He argued that AI needs to demonstrate the ability to challenge its training data, take counterfactual approaches, and identify new research directions from incomplete information. Using the board game Go as an analogy, Wolf said the landmark 2016 victory of DeepMind's AlphaGo over world champions made headlines but was not revolutionary. "Move 37, while impressive, is still essentially a straight-A student answer to the question posed by the rules of the game of Go," he wrote in his blog. "An Einstein-level breakthrough in Go would involve inventing the rules of Go itself." Hugging Face is a prominent open-source platform in the AI community, known for its collaborative development of open-source machine learning models and tools. The company is backed by investors including Sequoia Capital and Lux Capital, and it plays a leading role in developing transparent and accessible AI systems. Wolf concluded that while current models are useful as assistants, true scientific progress requires a different kind of intelligence—one that can formulate disruptive questions rather than repeat what is already known. See Next: $100k in assets? Maximize your retirement and cut down on taxes: Schedule your free call with a financial advisor to start your financial journey – no cost, no obligation. Warren Buffett once said, "If you don't find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die." Here's how you can earn passive income with just $100. UNLOCKED: 5 NEW TRADES EVERY WEEK. Click now to get top trade ideas daily, plus unlimited access to cutting-edge tools and strategies to gain an edge in the markets. Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? (AMZN): Free Stock Analysis Report ALPHABET (GOOG): Free Stock Analysis Report This article Hugging Face Co-Founder Challenges AI Optimists: 'Models Can't Ask Original Scientific Questions' originally appeared on © 2025 Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. Se produjo un error al recuperar la información Inicia sesión para acceder a tu portafolio Se produjo un error al recuperar la información Se produjo un error al recuperar la información Se produjo un error al recuperar la información Se produjo un error al recuperar la información
