Robots with a Human Touch: Are We Ready for the Awkwardness?

For years, engineers have been pursuing the ambitious goal of creating a robot that possesses both human-like qualities and practical functionality, drawing inspiration from beloved science fiction. Although the recent surge in artificial intelligence enthusiasm has prompted a fresh wave of investments towards constructing a humanoid robot, the majority of existing prototypes remain awkward and impractical, appearing more impressive in rehearsed demonstrations than in real-world scenarios. Nevertheless, a small number of startups persist in their pursuit of this dream.

“It’s not about starting over and saying, ‘Hey, we’re trying to make a robot look like a human,'” said Jonathan Hurst, co-founder and chief robotics officer at Agility Robotics. “We’re trying to make robots that can work in human spaces.”

Do we even need humanoids? Hurst describes Digit, the Agility warehouse robot, as human-centric, not humanoid, a distinction intended to emphasize what it does rather than what it tries to be.

Currently, it picks up trash cans and moves them. Amazon announced in October that it would begin testing Digits devices for use in its warehouses, and Agility opened an Oregon factory in September to mass produce them.

Digit has a head that contains cameras, other sensors, and animated eyes, and a body that essentially acts as its engine. It has two arms and two legs, but its legs are more bird-like than human, and the knees are inverted, resembling so-called digital animals such as birds, cats and dogs that walk on their toes rather than flat feet.

Competing robot manufacturers, such as Figure AI, take a more purist approach to the idea that only true humanoids can effectively navigate workplaces, homes and human-built society. Figure also plans to start with a relatively simple use case, such as a retail warehouse, but the goal is a commercial robot that can be “iterated like an iPhone” to perform multiple tasks that will take the work out of humans as the birth rate declines around the world.

“There aren’t enough people in these jobs, so the market is huge,” said Figure AI CEO Brett Adcock. “If we can get humanoids to do work that humans don’t want to do because humans are in short supply, we can sell millions. humanoids, maybe billions.”

Currently, however, Adcock’s company does not have a prototype that is ready for the market. It was founded just over a year ago and, after raising tens of millions of dollars, recently unveiled a 38-second video of Figure walking through its test facility in Sunnyvale, California.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is also trying to build a humanoid, called Optimus, through the electric carmaker’s robotics division, but a surprise live demonstration of the robot’s awkward stop last year failed to impress robotics experts. Seemingly further away is Tesla’s Austin, Texas-based neighbor Apptronik, which unveiled its Apollo humanoid in a video presentation in August.

Having all the attention — and money — wasted on making humanoid machines might make the whole enterprise seem like a futile hobby to wealthy techies, but for some legged robot pioneers, it’s all about what you learn along the way.

“Not only about their design and operation, but also how people respond to them and the critical technologies behind mobility, dexterity, perception and intelligence,” said Marc Raibert, founder of Boston Dynamics, best known for its dog-like robots called Spot.

Raibert said that sometimes the path of development is not straightforward. Boston Dynamics, now a subsidiary of automaker Hyundai, experimented with building a humanoid that handled boxes.

“This led to the development of a new robot that was not really humanoid, but had many humanoid characteristics,” he said in an email. “However, the changes resulted in a new robot that could handle boxes faster, could work longer hours, and could operate in confined spaces such as a truck. So humanoid research led to a useful non-humanoid robot.”

Some startups aiming for human-like machines focused on improving the dexterity of robotic fingers before trying to make their robots walk.

Walking “isn’t the hardest problem to solve in humanoid robotics,” said Geordie Rose, founder and CEO of British Columbia, Canada-based startup Sanctuary AI. “The most difficult problem is understanding the world and being able to manipulate it by hand.”

Sanctuary’s newest and first bipedal robot, Phoenix, is capable of stocking shelves, unloading delivery vehicles and operating a cash register. These are early steps toward what Rose sees as a much longer-term goal of having robots perceive the physical world so that they can reason about it in a way that resembles intelligence. Like other humanoids, it’s meant to look lovely because how it interacts with real people is a big part of its mission.

“We want to be able to provide labor to the world, not just for one thing, but for anyone who needs it,” Rose said. “Systems must be able to think like people. So we could call it general AI if you like. However, I mean more precisely that the systems must be able to understand speech and they must be able to turn speech understanding into actions that satisfy work tasks throughout the economy.”

Agility’s Digit robot caught Amazon’s attention because it can walk and also move in a way that could complement the e-commerce giant’s current fleet of vehicle-like robots that move large carts around its vast warehouses.

“Mobility The point of view is more interesting than the actual form,” said The Brady, Amazon’s chief robotics engineer, after the company unveiled it at a media event in Seattle.

Digit is currently being tested to assist in repetitive picking and moving of empty bags. But its mere existence inevitably raises some fears about robots taking human jobs. Amazon is trying to prevent it from gaining power.

Agility Robotics founder and CEO Damion Shelton said the warehouse robot is “just the first use” for a new generation of robots that he hopes will be embraced rather than played as they prepare to enter businesses and homes.

“So in 10, 20 years, you’re going to see these robots everywhere,” Shelton said. “Such human-centered robots will be a part of human life forever. So that’s pretty exciting.”

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