How useful are the latest robots?

Humanoid robots are on the cusp of becoming commercially useful, say Chinese and American companies that have announced plans to produce them on a large scale in the past three months.

Many researchers agree that there has been a significant change in human capabilities over the past five years, due to cheap spare parts as well as innovations such as improved battery power and artificial intelligence algorithms, which allow for better cognition and independence.

In November, Chinese company UBTECH announced that it had completed “the world’s first mass delivery of humanoid robots.” More than 1,000 Walker S2 humanoid robots will be sent to factories in 2025, says Yu Cheng, a roboticist and deputy dean of the UBTECH Research Institute in Shenzhen. This silvery-white robot can walk independently and stably, as well as grasp and move objects, but its deployment is “still at an early stage,” says Cheng.

It remains to be seen whether humanoid robots save companies time or money. Battery time is limited to hours and many activities still require human operators, who use robots as dummies to complete tasks while collecting data for future iterations. Other researchers warn that technical and safety limitations mean humanoid robots are not ready for general-purpose use in homes and offices.

“Maybe they can do one or two things autonomously, or semi-autonomously,” says Esin Chiu, a roboticist at Cardiff Metropolitan University in the UK, who is leading a project that involves trialling more than 80 robots in service and healthcare settings. “But they can’t respond to real-world problems like our human brains do,” she says.

The AI ​​revolution is coming to robots: how will it change them?

Why, robot?

Science fiction has long fueled the idea that robots will eventually come in human form, though the body type is inherently complex and unstable, compared to stationary or four-legged robots already used in industry, says Oscar Palenko, a roboticist at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense. “A person will fall if he loses his strength,” he says.

But human beings have the advantage of working in environments created by people. In theory, Palenko says, this could make humans a “universal tool” that can do the job of multiple other types of machines.

Robots are closer to that dream than they were a decade ago, he says, thanks to denser batteries that power robots for hours rather than minutes, cheaper and more precise motors (which convert electricity into motion) and artificial intelligence learning algorithms in robot control systems. Developers are increasingly taking advantage of generative models that enable robots to “think” and understand the world, as well as giving them the ability to learn tasks for which they were not previously programmed.

Automakers

The first application for humans may be in automobile factories. Some U.S. robotics developers, including Boston Dynamics and Tesla, operate humanoid robot pilots at their parent company’s industrial facilities. The automotive industry is an “ideal environment” for applying humanoid robots, says Carolina Parada, who is based in Boulder, Colorado, and leads the robotics team at Google DeepMind, which last week announced a partnership with Boston Dynamics. Their factories host diverse and complex tasks “in a semi-structured environment designed for robots,” she says.

Companies are pinning their hopes on robots that learn on the job. When the UBTECH Walker S2 fails while operating autonomously, a remote backup operator takes over, says Cheng. This process collects data to improve future jobs, he says. UBTECH and Boston Dynamics are applying the same technology in large data collection centers, where humans operate humanoid robots remotely to teach them to perform a range of tasks.

Robots demonstrate the principles of collective intelligence

Although China and the United States are leading the way in robotics development, China appears particularly ready to embrace robots. Cheng says factories in the country are willing to let UBTECH test and improve their robots. “Currently, the efficiency and productivity of a humanoid robot may not match that of a human worker, and our customers know this well,” adds a UBTECH spokesperson. “They see it as the beginning.”