Embodied AI in Machine Learning -- is it Really Embodied?

Abstract: Embodied Artificial Intelligence (Embodied AI) is gaining momentum in the machine learning communities with the goal of leveraging current progress in AI (deep learning, transformers, large language and visual-LLMs) to empower robots. In this chapter we put this work in the context of "Good Old-Fashioned Artificial Intelligence" (GOFAI) (Haugeland, 1989) and the behavior-based or embodied alternatives (R. A. Brooks 1991; Pfeifer and Scheier 2001). We claim that the AI-powered robots are only weakly embodied and inherit some of the problems of GOFAI. Moreover, we review and critically discuss the possibility of cross-embodiment learning (Padalkar et al. 2024). We identify fundamental roadblocks and propose directions on how to make progress.