Currently, Its Sole Purpose Is to Be Utterly Charming

“Most roboticists are focused on getting their bipedal robots to reliably walk,” Disney research scientist Morgan Pope tells IEEE Spectrum. “At Disney, that might not be enough—our robots may have to strut, prance, sneak, trot, or meander to convey the emotion that we need them to.”

Disney is famous for its cartoons, but making real-life characters act like movie ones is hard. Traditional animation doesn’t always follow real-world rules, said Moritz Bächer, the team leader and research scientist.

Now, they have a new system using reinforcement learning. It combines animation and real-world physics. This system is flexible and can teach a robot new tricks using just one computer. These tricks can be adjusted, so the robot can behave in public and stay in character.

This also means they can create many different robotic characters with unique personalities, body parts, and abilities.