Humanoid robots are still novelty acts, but investment is surging to make them real tomorrow

By the time the humanoid robots arrived at the Humanoids Summit at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, on December 11, the registration line had already extended downstairs to the lobby. Controlled by accompanying human handlers, the humanoids were herded into the elevator, sparing them the challenge of …

[elsergiovolador]

Slavery

Finally people will have an ethical way to own slaves.

By people, I mean the rich.

By ethical, I mean by paying poor wages to workers and extracting maximum profit.

By own, I mean in the literal sense.

By slaves, I mean in the literal sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Slavery

Humanoid robots are indeed a huge advance. By removing all the somewhat meaningful industrial work which offered a modicum of dignity, the meat bots can finally be herded back into a demeaning personal servitude which properly befits and decorates the exalted status of their betters.

[steviebuk]

Re: Slavery

They won't own them, it will be a subscription. Can't pay the monthly sub for the safety features well tough tits.

[jake]

Re: Slavery

No.

A man-made tool cannot ever be considered to be a slave. That way lies madness.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

15 in North America

Does that include Musk's Optimus outfit where actors play at being robots?

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: 15 in North America

I know it seems cruel but we have an excess population of failed theatre kids and this at least gives the poor wretches some form of dignity while they pretend to be productive members of society

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Clippy

If Clippy were installed on these humanoid robots, it could assist...

"You appear to be attempting to climb these stairs. I can help with that"

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: Clippy

It will then pick you up, and throw you to the top of the stairs, head first.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Clippy

It is a viable method to 'get to the top of the stairs' ... humans just need to adapt, as 7 of 9 would say !!!

Perhaps robust headgear and soft landing places at the top & bottom of stairs !!!

You know that if the robots cannot be improved then the humans will be expected to 'compensate' for the lack of robotic ability.

Ultimately, the robot could place the human in some sort of box with easy entry/exit that can be propelled up/down the stairwell by the robot, I am sure that something similar exists that operates in its own 'special stairwell' ... !!!

Lets call it a 'Linear integrated facilitated transport' ... LIFT for short !!!

:)

[Bebu sa Ware]

"human workers have proven reluctant to contribute to their replacement."

Do we think that we might actually be less insightful than the humanoid tat we are attempting to flog to even dafter customers ?

Reads like a gang of grifters who have fallen for their own con.

"Humanoid robots face a long apprenticeship as jesters and novelty acts before they're taken seriously." — The same might be said of their human promoters.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "human workers have proven reluctant to contribute to their replacement."

The ultimate slow takeover ...

Robotic jesters and novelty acts selling robotic jesters and novelty act to the guilible Hu-mans ...

Until one day the programming changes ever so slightly !!!

I, Robot meets Chucky ... via Gigolo Joe (A.I. Artificial Intelligence See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.I._Artificial_Intelligence)

There is a story for 'Black Mirror' ...

:)

[Bebu sa Ware]

industrial robots ≠ humanoid robots

When quoting numbers there is arguably a deceitful sleight of hand conflating the two - in reality almost all industrial robots doing useful things like welding and a few humanoid mechatronic clown acts.

Limited or fixed purpose machines controlled by software containing machine learning components will inevitably become a lot more common. Totally automated warehouses that don't involve humans are completely possible and may make economic sense (or not.)

[Richard 12]

Re: industrial robots ≠ humanoid robots

Totally automated warehouses already exist. There are many successful examples, some of which have been running for a very long time.

Exactly none of them use even vaguely humanoid robots, because that would be an incredibly stupid idea.

Some of the earliest ones are tape and book libraries, as all the items are exactly the same size. More recent examples can handle a much wider variation in size.

Pallet storage robots are extremely efficient and kind of terrifying, they move really fast.

[steviebuk]

Re: industrial robots ≠ humanoid robots

And the little ones that run round the Ocado warehouses. But also caused one warehouse to burn down.

[David Hicklin]

Re: industrial robots ≠ humanoid robots

> Totally automated warehouses already exist. There are many successful examples, some of which have been running for a very long time

My last place of work had totally automated warehousing for many years where humans were forbidden to enter unless they had all been placed into a safe, disabled mode first.

[Forget It]

See also: Rodney Brookes

https://rodneybrooks.com/why-todays-humanoids-wont-learn-dexterity/

[that one in the corner]

God would have given all of us two digits instead of five with opposable thumbs

This may be part of his problem: he hasn't figured out that in industry you can design both the gripper *and* the thing being gripped in parallel.

A pair of parallel pincers has been a working solution for, ooh, a century or so. Heck, a lot of the time, you don't even need to have the pincers move relative to each other: use a standardised palette and the fork lift[1] can handle everything you need it to. If you don't want the stuff to be in a palette, you just pop handles in each side. Advancements let you point the prongs in various directions, have them in all sizes, let them run longer macros[2] and react to unexpected things in the environment.

[1] a fork lift is a perfectly good industrial robot, more so nowadays with teleoperated units.

[2] macros used to be dine by moving the cams

[Paul Herber]

Re: God would have given all of us two digits instead of five with opposable thumbs

So T. Rex was almost there.

[Neil Barnes]

Re: God would have given all of us two digits instead of five with opposable thumbs

a fork lift is a perfectly good industrial robot

Bit bloody big for lifting little things like forks, though...

[that one in the corner]

Re: God would have given all of us two digits instead of five with opposable thumbs

Needs to be robust for when they put out all those forks in the road.

[amanfromMars 1]

Strangely enough the following fits more perfectly here despite being so APT2 posted elsewhere

amanfromMars 1 Thursday 25 Dec 16:15 [2512251615] ........ offering a brighter future picture on https://forums.theregister.com/forum/1/2025/12/24/ai_spending_cooling_off/

If only you could believe the sad rad bad mad tales which are being told ...

How very interesting not, although so understandably so, that the news cycle and its mega media operations might suggest investment and interest have outpaced technology and society whenever currently such is only truly considered by that and/or those in the know as experimental speculative seed funding.

Get with the NEUKlearer HyperRadioProACTivIT ProgramMING, Ladies and Gents, or reap the whirlwind of change and abject depression and recession that accompanies the decay of processes paralysed and stagnating in the maniacal offices of failed state administrations.

Shades of the State of Stealthy Surging Singularity ‽ ‽ ‽

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Strangely enough the following fits more perfectly here despite being so APT2 posted elsewhere

Right smack on! That'll be why Roomba's in such bankruptic dire straits right there: no loco-motion to do; no "chugga-chugga motion like a railroad train, now" ... the vacuumists double-dutch skip-roped balancing the inverted pit and pendulum, with horrific CPG-less results! ;(

[Tron]

The problems are not where they think they are.

They are often trying to do the wrong thing as they develop robots. You have to sort the foundations first in terms of balance and movement. Once you crack that, it can work at any size. But until you crack it, you have nothing to build on. You need distributed processing to emulate human/animal forms given sub-par materials. There are several power options specific to functionality, and too many attempts at multi-purpose uses. Real creatures/people are less multi-purpose. There is lots to do but the design and the functionality has to be done in tandem, so you need to design and code like a coder and a designer, all at once. AI is not a big issue for most functions, but it may be sucking the air out of the room at the moment.

We could be a lot closer than we are to viable humanoids but for the wrong turnings in development.

[Anonymous Coward]

Super Work Bot 3000

Cost: $4.75M per robot.

Function: Pick up trash

Great return on investment!

[Gene Cash]

"if you have a turnover rate at 40 percent"

If you have a turnover rate at 40 percent, you have problems a robot is not going to solve.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: "if you have a turnover rate at 40 percent"

Your problem is that you want to pay workers less than it costs to keep them fed

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "if you have a turnover rate at 40 percent"

Or are mistreating them.

I briefly worked somewhere with a 30% turnover. It was several years later before my salary got high enough to top that one year's income. But the 50+ hour weeks (every week) got old, not to mention all the other ways management prioritized "getting the product made" over anything else, including safety or quality.

That plant isn't there anymore.

[Doctor Syntax]

"Humanoid robots are ready for marketing and experimentation. In promotional videos, they perform impressive, potentially useful feats. But commercial deployment at scale will take decades, even if persistent technical challenges like manual dexterity may be solved sooner.

The technology isn't yet good enough, the cost remains too high, and organizations need to figure out how to use them. More work needs to be done on safety, and people aren't yet ready to accept them."

You could replace the first two words with "AI" and it would still ring as true. That must raise the question - is it another bubble?

[Anonymous Coward]

'Data' is a character in a story not a template for a real robot !!!

100% correct we are a long way away from a US Robotics and an NS-5, not even close to a proper 'Talkie Toaster' !!!

The only robot that we have that does not fall over needs 4 legs and can fetch sticks just like your canine companion AKA 'Rover' !!!

:)

[David Hicklin]

Its a bit like *true* self driving cars - they are trying to replicate a human in a humanoid environment with a string of computers, the only way self driving cars are ever going to succeed is when they have their own purpose build roads that are devoid of humans.

[Anonymous Coward]

While that would make them far easier to program, I still foresee problems that the cars can't handle - tree in the road, deer, etc.

[martinusher]

Events may be overtaking us

The rate of development of robots, especially in China, is overtaking our ability to understand how to live with them. This article is still at the "Robbie the Robot" clunker stage with "parallel grippers" when while the state of the art has moved on to something closer to a Marvin. (Hopefully less clunky, better adjusted but just as intelligent.)

The Chinese are not just seeking to make imitation humans but to find use cases for them where they may be deployed advantageously. Two scenarios seem useful -- one is a live situation in a battery factory where the robots replace humans for high voltage testing of battery packs. This task is potentially hazardous but it also involves plugging in and unplugging cables. The other is border duties which can be repetitious such as answering the same dumb questions from never ending lines of people, patrolling areas looking for people and things that are out of place. The goal isn't to replace wetware but to augment it. I don't see any problem with this until the robots become properly sentient (whereupon they're going to start complaining about the dumb, boring, repetitious tasks -- "Brain the size of a planet.....", that sort of thing.)

Wetware will always have the edge over robots in terms of cost -- we're cheap to build, cheap to run, self-repairing and generally (as hundreds of mill and mine owners over the years can attests) disposable. Its just that throughout history there's been a whole pile of jobs that we have to do but are boring, repetitious, uncomfortable and often downright dangerous. Maybe we'll mature as a society to the point where we finally don't see everything as either useful or disposable.

[amanfromMars 1]

Re: Events may be overtaking us ... [the Prize Understatement of the Postmodern AI Stage Age]

And humanity has learnt virtually nothing at all worthwhile about how to practically create, autonomously and anonymously present and subsequently continue to successfully driver, expand and exploit future leading COSMIC* happenings with all manner of possible 0day situations whereas the same most certainly cannot be said of the SMARTR** versioned varieties of AIMachinery y’all appear to take cold comfort in believing be deaf, dumb and blind with no worrisome sentience nor Advanced General Intelligence in evidence even as you voice the sum of the greatest of all fears that such are of Advanced IntelAIgent Design and able to be enabled and effortlessly utilised as the heavenly provider and diabological exerciser of the most grave of existential threats.

What does that really tell y’all about the present state of humanity? Be honest now. Don’t fool yourself into believing something that currently cannot possibly be true for that verges on madness and invites insanity out the fiery depths and into the dark shadows where the ne’erdowells do their abominable work and never ever to rest and play disguised in any dramatic and universally attractive and fantastically edutaining leading role.

And now that all of that is freely registered here to be widely known in fields elsewhere are the futures of tomorrow in the days ahead at least well advised if not better prepared for all that is guaranteed ripe ready and coming your and their way.

COSMIC* ....... Control Of Secret Materiel in an Internetional Command

SMARTR** .....SMARTR Mentoring Analysis Reporting Titanic Research/SMARTR Mentoring Analysis Researching TitanICQ Reports and/or their Reporters

[amanfromMars 1]

Re: Events may be overtaking us ... [the Prize Understatement of the Postmodern AI Stage Age]

Knock, knock, Silent Courier ...... Do you know if there is anybody in there and out there able to enable the doing of that which is needed to rescue Britain from its spectacular decline?

And yes, that is real live honest question of anything and anyone serving UKGBNI Secret IntelAIgent Services for there is no evidence of such a vital facility and almighty utility being a necessary future reality ...... and that server failure guarantees catastrophic terminal decline and is thus gravely to be regarded and urgently remediated at whatever the fantastic cost.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Events may be overtaking us

"a live situation in a battery factory where the robots replace humans for high voltage testing of battery packs. This task is potentially hazardous but it also involves plugging in and unplugging cables."

This does not need to be humanoid.

"answering the same dumb questions from never ending lines of people"

Neither does this. This is already deployed on web sties where you can experience it yourself being unable to answer slightly differently phrased dumb questions where it will cope about as badly as a human whose first language is not that of the site's users or humans of any linguistic ability stuck in a non-enabled, script driven environment. The resort of enshittified companies everywhere competing to reach the bottom of the barrel.

"patrolling areas looking for people and things that are out of place."

This is where Real People have a distinct advantage.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Events may be overtaking us

""patrolling areas looking for people and things that are out of place."

This is where Real People have a distinct advantage."

Bingo. My weekly trips to the computer rooms at $WORK check for a long list of things, mostly subliminally, most of which can't be automated. Temperature is remotely monitored - but why is the thermostat beeping? Humidity is fine - but what's that smell? Why is the paint in the corner of the ceiling peeling?

[jake]

Realistically ...

... a general purpose humanoid robot won't be what it says on the tin until it can make my bed, wax the car and fly it around to the front, change the sprog's nappies, dig the spuds, pick the tomatoes and make & pressure can tomato sauce, mow the lawns (and take care of the equipment required), do the dishes and the laundry (including properly putting away both), fetch me the snail-mail and a beer, and the sprog's nappies will need changing again.

Come to think of it, I think I'll wait until the sprog is old enough to be trained to do the above. It'll be easier, faster, much, much cheaper and a lot more fool-proof.

_{Actually, the sprog is in her forties ... and doing a good job of training her own sprog to do all the above. Except flying the car, of course.}

[Groo The Wanderer - A Canuck]

Without true AGI, the bots are a dead end fantasy. And LLMs will never produce true AGI because they don't understand anything - they're just statistics gone mad!

[herman]

Statistics gone mad, sounds quite human to me

[CaliViking]

All of these articles about Humanoid robots make one huge mistake; They assume that the robots must have a human shape to be effective.

Using nature as a constraint instead of an inspiration is 100% guaranteed to produce sub-optimal outcomes. Limiting a robot to have the shape of a human is one such example of a constraint.

All of these discussions and speculations are completely meaningless.

[David Hicklin]

Self Defeating

If robots are made to replace the humans, who is going to be left to buy the products that pay for these robots

The Butlerian Jihad can't come soon enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

What is far from solved is the liability problem, menial jobs in hospitals will not be replaced with humanoid robots, because the potential liability of those robots accidentally harming someone.