Republican state senators in New York on Friday wrote a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul urging her to launch an independent investigation into possible fraud involving government programs in response to similar allegations in Minnesota.

“We write to you concerning disturbing reports of widespread fraud involving taxpayer dollars in the state of Minnesota, including schemes that reportedly involved sham daycare centers and other illegitimate entities,” the letter, signed by 12 Republican state senators, said.

The letter added that the “revelations” in Minnesota “raise serious concerns about the vulnerability of publicly funded programs to abuse.”

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The senators urged Hochul to “immediately retain an independent private professional services firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of comparable programs in New York State.”

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The letter said that the audit was necessary “to ensure that public funds are being distributed solely to legitimate organizations and eligible individuals and to identify and address any instances of fraud, waste or abuse.”

“Given that New York administers comparable programs involving billions of taxpayer dollars it is imperative that proactive measures be taken to ensure similar abuses are not occurring here,” the letter said.

The senators noted $68 million in Medicaid fraud that the U.S. Department of Justice said it uncovered at a Brooklyn operator of social adult daycare centers in July. 

“At a time when resources are strained, it is essential that available funds are protected and directed exclusively to those who truly need assistance,” they added.  

The senator said that with reports that Hochul’s office plans to advance a proposal for universal pre-kindergarten in the next legislative session, “ensuring these programs are efficient, transparent and free from fraud should be a shared priority for all New Yorkers.” 

The Small Business Administration announced Thursday that it had suspended 6,900 Minnesota borrowers after uncovering what it says is widespread suspected fraud in the state.

SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler sent a letter Tuesday to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Dec. 23, telling him that her agency will “halt” more than $5.5 million in annual support to resource partners in the state “until further notice.” 

“I am notifying you that effective immediately and until further notice, the SBA is halting the disbursement of federal funds to SBA resource partners operating in the state of Minnesota, totaling over $5.5 million in annual support,” Loeffler wrote.

The SBA said that at least $2.5 million in PPP and EIDL funds issued during the pandemic era were connected to a Somali fraud scheme based in Minneapolis.

Loeffler told Walz that $430 million in PPP funds tied to roughly 13,000 loans were flagged as potentially fraudulent but were still funded anyway, including some that were forgiven during the Biden administration.

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“The volume and concentration of potential fraud is staggering, matched in its egregiousness only by your response to those who attempted to stop it,” she wrote.

Hochul’s office told Fox News Digital in response to the letter: “This is a rich political stunt coming from the lawmaker who spent months fighting the Governor’s efforts to route out waste, fraud and abuse in the state’s Medicaid program,” referencing GOP State Sen. Robert Ortt. “Instead of suggesting we spend taxpayer dollars to do the jobs of the State Comptroller and State Inspector General, the Minority Leader should focus on supporting the many longstanding initiatives that the Governor has advanced to stop fraud and protect taxpayers.”

In 2021, 60 Minutes visited the offices of robotics company Boston Dynamics and met an early model of its humanoid robot, Atlas. 

It could run, jump and maintain its balance when pushed. But it was bulky, with stiff, mechanical movements. 

Now, Atlas can cartwheel, dance, run with human-like fluidity, twist its arms, head and torso 360 degrees, and pick itself up off of the floor using only its feet. 

“They call it a humanoid, but he stands up in a way no human could possibly stand up,” correspondent Bill Whitaker told Overtime. “His limbs can bend in ways ours can’t.”

Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Playter told Whitaker that Atlas’ “superhuman” range of motion is keeping with the company’s vision for humanoid robots. 

“We think that’s the way you should build robots. Don’t limit yourself to what people can do, but actually go beyond,” Playter said. 

Whitaker watched demonstrations of the latest Atlas model at Boston Dynamics’ headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts. Rather than turning around to walk in the other direction, Atlas can simply rotate its upper torso 180 degrees. 

“For us to turn around, we have to physically turn around,” he told Overtime. “Atlas just pivots on his core.”

Boston Dynamics’ head of robotics research, Scott Kuindersma, told Whitaker that Atlas doesn’t have wires that cross its the joints of the limbs, torso and head, allowing continuous rotation for tasks and easier maintenance of the robot.

“The robot’s not really limited in its range of motion,” Kuindersma told Whitaker. “One of the reliability issues that you often find in robots is that their wires start to break over time… we don’t have any wires that go across those rotating parts anymore.”

Another upgrade to the Atlas humanoid robot is its AI brain, powered by Nvidia chips.

Atlas’ AI can be trained to do tasks.  One way is through teleoperation, in which a human controls the robot. Using virtual reality gear, the teleoperator trains Atlas to do a specific task, repeating it multiple times until the robot succeeds.

Whitaker watched a teleoperation training session. A Boston Dynamics’ machine learning scientist showed Atlas how to stack cups and tie a knot.

Kuindersma told Whitaker robot hands pose a complex engineering problem.

“Human hands are incredible machines that are very versatile. We can do many, many different manipulation tasks with the same hand,” Kuindersma said. 

Boston Dynamics’ new Atlas has only three digits on each hand, which can swing into different positions or modes.

“They can act as if they were a hand with these three digits, or this digit can swing around and act more like a thumb,” Kuindersma said. 

“It allows the robot to have different shaped grasps, to have two-finger opposing grasp to pick up small objects. And then also make its hands very wide, in order to pick up large objects.”

Kuindersma said the robot has tactile sensors on its fingers, which provide information to Atlas’ neural network so the robot can learn how to manipulate objects with the right amount of pressure.

But Kuindersma said there is still room to improve teleoperation systems.

“Being able to precisely control not only the shape and the motion, but the force of the grippers, is actually an interesting challenge,” Kuindersma told Whitaker. 

“I think there’s still a lot of opportunity to improve teleoperation systems, so that we can do even more dexterous manipulation tasks with robots.”

Whitaker told Overtime, “There is quite a bit of hype around these humanoids right now. Financial institutions predict that we will be living with millions, if not billions, of robots in our future. We’re not there yet.”

Whitaker asked Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Playter if the humanoid hype was getting ahead of reality. 

“There is definitely a hype cycle right now. Part of that is created by the optimism and enthusiasm we see for the potential,” Playter said.

“But while AI, while software, can sort of move ahead at super speeds… these are machines and building reliable machines takes time…  These robots have to be reliable. They have to be affordable. That will take time to deploy.”

The video above was produced by Will Croxton. It was edited by Scott Rosann.