The state of Humanoid Robots and what the future will behold.

Last week we briefly touched upon robots, a great reason to actually dive in this week! Why we discussed it is because people always thought we would see robots taking over our lives, much rather than any other form of AI (such as the LLM’s and other models we have now). As mentioned, building robots is a lot more complicated than most people think (or thought).

Why that is, has mostly to do with the fact that we underestimate just how complex and brilliant our own bodies really are. Take Tesla’s egg example from last week. We don’t think about how much power to use when picking up an egg. But a robot will either crush it or lets it slip. Same goes for walking. For us, it’s automatic. For robots, it’s a constant challenge of balance, terrain shifts, and real-time physics calculations. Even something as basic as opening a door isn’t simple it takes vision, grip strength, and perfect coordination, all things we do without a second thought.

Our brains process movement, perception, and decisions in milliseconds; robots need massive computing power just to pull off one smooth step. As impressive as they are, today’s humanoid robots are still playing catch-up with the genius of the human body.

Let’s look at where we are at with the development of these humanoid robots. Here is a list of the five companies you should know, each having a slightly different idea or expertise.

Figure AI
Figure AI is developing Figure 02, a sleek humanoid robot designed to tackle labor shortages by performing tasks like warehouse stocking and retail assistance. Backed by $675M from OpenAI, Jeff Bezos and Microsoft, they aim to boost productivity and safety in industries facing worker deficits. Although they had a close partnership with OpenAI, they canceled that recently, opting to develop their own AI after a “major breakthrough” in-house, believing vertical integration is key to solving embodied AI at scale.

Tesla
Tesla’s Optimus is a general-purpose humanoid built to handle repetitive or dangerous jobs, such as factory work or household chores, using the company’s self-driving AI tech. With plans for 2025 production, Elon Musk envisions affordable robots to transform labor and daily life. Their latest version, Optimus 2, already looks pretty handy!

Boston Dynamics
Boston Dynamics crafts Atlas, an agile humanoid with flips and jumps, now electric-powered for real-world tasks like search-and-rescue or manufacturing alongside Hyundai. They’re pushing robots to adapt to human spaces, enhancing efficiency and reducing risks.

Agility Robotics
Agility Robotics’ Digit is a bipedal robot engineered for logistics, like warehouse delivery, with human-like mobility to navigate our world seamlessly. With $150M raised, they’re scaling to automate tedious tasks, partnering with companies like Amazon for efficiency gains.

Apptronik
Apptronik’s Apollo is a humanoid robot built for logistics and manufacturing, like moving goods in warehouses or assisting in car plants, powered by its $350M funding boost in February. They’re targeting labor gaps with practical, human-friendly bots, already piloting with giants like Mercedes-Benz.

Staying with Apptronik for a bit as they just announced something interesting (or scary? haha) as they are partnering up with Jabil (a global leader in engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain solutions) to see how they can utilize Apollo in their manufacturing lines, with the long term goal of having Apollo build new Apollo’s. Yes, this means robots building new robots who are identical to themselves.

So how will a future full of humanoid robots look like?

Now we all know that Musk is known for his wild predictions but even if 20 or 30% of this will come true it will still feel like a major shift. Musk is also not alone in his predictions. Cathie Wood, a prominent tech investor, predicts the humanoid robot market will explode to $1 trillion by 2030. Brett Adcock of Figure AI has gone even further, speculating that in our lifetime the world might host billions of humanoid robots. His aggressive plan to ship 100k robots by 2028-2029 underlines this optimism.

There are also skeptics of course. A majority of experts tend to agree that humanoids will appear in professional settings first (factories, logistics, etc.) through the 2020s, but widespread use in unstructured public environments or private homes might take longer, more towards the 2040’s. They say their is a need for much better AI to handle the chaos of home life and the long tail of tasks. Which means that AI needs to be able to memorize, plan, strategize accordingly, something that no AI Model does very well at this point.

But here you can also see how much of these things work hand in hand. Better AI Models, means better robots. With the speed of model evolution we are seeing at the moment you wonder if it indeed will speed up humanoid innovation as well.

All together, it does feel inevitable that we will see humanoid robots as a big part of our lives eventually. Like with all tech, they will start being expensive. Musk floated around a price point of 20.000 USD for the first, market ready, Optimus robot. But we also know that those prices will come down eventually in order to unlock mass adoption.

What could a possible future with humanoid robots look like?

The goal of my newsletter is always to open up the readers mind, to try to look a bit beyond what we are seeing now. Thought provoking questions, or interesting thought experiments, important to expand thinking in my opinion.

A first big question that comes to mind is; would you rather have a “human like/looking” robot? Or one that you can obviously see it is a robot? For me personally, I am not sure yet haha! Probably in the beginning I would rather have one that clearly is a robot. But I also wonder how long it will take for society to just get use to it? I know, veeeeery strange to think about. It probably needs some sort of legislation at that point, just like with AI Models/Agents now, that they will always need to identify themselves as a robot when speaking to a human?

On this topic, I highly suggest the great movie Ex Machina (see trailer above). Is the ultimate AI, one that you can’t tell the difference anymore between human or AI? Go see the movie and find out!

Talking about our legal challenges, which are already big when it comes to AI that does not have a body, there is even more for humanoid robots. Regulators will need to establish safety standards for free-moving robots: for instance, what certifications must a humanoid have before it can operate in a nursing home or on a public sidewalk? We may need some sort of “robot driver’s licenses” 🤣. Some sort of tests to ensure they can navigate without endangering people?

And then there is of course the similar question we asked ourselves last week when it comes to AI Agents. Liabilities. What happens if a humanoid robot bumps into a person and injures someone, who is responsible? The manufacturer, the owner, or the software developer? Laws will have to catch up to assign liability in cases of robot accidents or misuse.

Ok, but stay with me now, let’s go into actual crazy theory land for a second 🤣. Every technology has evolved our societal norms as well. AI and robots will absolutely do the same.

We now laugh about it but there are already hundreds (if not thousands) of people falling “in love” with AI characters. See here an example from The Netherlands where Jacob van Lier is in a full relationship with his AI character called Aiva (sorry for the non-Dutchies, the link is in Dutch only but I bet AI can translate it for you 😉). You understand where I am going with this…. add humanoids who look, sound (and feel) like humans do and yes there will be a lot of people who will find love with a robot.

Now the big question is, is that bad? Is that wrong? I would say no immediately.. If it makes the person happy then why not? Who are we to judge?

Yup, all weird as f***, I agree! 🤣 

In general, having AI and robotics doing most of the jobs out there, creating a world of abundance. That leaves us humans with a lot of free time. As mentioned last time, for a lot of people that will first result in a major internal crisis. Being “forced” to answer big questions such as “who am I?” and “what do I really want to do with my time?”. But eventually it will be a healthier place. I think we can all agree by now that the 5-day workweek is going to be history eventually and the big question becomes, what will you do with your time?

As a positive person I think the result of this could definitely be more creativity, more creation, stronger personal connections, better mental health.

To take things even further. How would a world look where anyone can get anything, anywhere? Elon Musk recently questioned, at a conference, the need for money? Do we need money if anything is available to us because it gets build, harvested, designed, etc by robots and AI? Of course, it is an extreme but again an interesting thought experiment to think about.

I can not end this discussion about humanoids without again hammering on the importance of decentralization. Every breakthrough in technology brings us a step closer to a world where tech is even more intertwined with our lives than it already is. This also means that the possible power and influence the creators of these technologies will have becomes scarier. If people will have relationships with these humanoids, when they will take care of other people, are in every home, teach our children. No one person, or group of people, should have influence over these humanoids (who are driven by AI Models, don’t forget that).

The perfect solutions for decentralized AI are maybe not there yet, but that does not mean we need to give up on it. It matters, more than ever.

Here are some of the latest announcements and other things that I found interesting this week (underscore means clickable!):

• GPT 4.5 has arrived! Sam Altman warned people that this model is not cutting edge, it is “different”. His exact words: “this isn’t a reasoning model and won’t crush benchmarks. it’s a different kind of intelligence and there’s a magic to it i haven’t felt before. really excited for people to try it!”
  
  One other use case it seems to be very well suited for is writing. No more typical “GPT sounding” rubbish? Here are some good comparisons below! Also, only available to Pro users for now but Altman mentioned that they will roll out to Plus users soon too.

• While we just mentioned the movie Her, it is time to test out something new. Sesame, a company founded by Brendan Iribe (Oculus co-founder) and Ankit Kumar (ex-Discord AI lead), launched a demo Maya, an AI voice assistant. Nothing new you would think but it went viral for how incredibly human it sounds and therefore feels. Highly recommend giving it a try here: click.

• A fun real life GPT hack. I was having a soar throat/runny nose due to pushing myself to hard in the gym and I wanted some help with recovery. Being in a new country I had no idea what to buy, so uploaded this picture and asked what I should get and told it I want it to be fully natural (or as natural as possible). The winner: “Tolak Angin (bottom row, yellow box) – This is an herbal remedy made from natural ingredients like ginger, mint, honey, and fennel. It’s commonly used in Indonesia to relieve symptoms of colds, sore throats, and flu.”

  

• Although Amazon announced their upgraded Alexa with smooth AI and Google already had theirs, my favorite tech brand of all time is lagging behind. Not only that, the wait for Siri to become actually useable will become even longer it seems?! As an Apple fanboy, I am sad about this as reports say we will only have it in 2027….

• To continue with some more positive Apple stuff, they have quietly been killing it with Apple TV+ in my opinion, a lot of great shows on there. As I recommended a few here already I thought I would make a list of all the Apple TV+ shows that are worth a watch! Here you go: Severance - Silo - Ted Lasso - The Morning Show - Foundation - Masters of the Air - For All Mankind - Dark Matter - See - Sunny - Sugar - Disclaimer - Invasion - Presumed Innocent. Have funnnnn!

• Something fun to end this weeks newsletter with. A guy from Columbia, built cheat software in order to get himself an internship at Amazon and shared everything online after. I understand that you can’t cheat, but he still shows incredible skill at such a young age, someone will definitely hire him 🤣. Should Amazon have still brought him on instead of emailing his university?

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^{Who am I and why you should be here:}

^{Over the years, I’ve navigated industries like advertising, music, sports, and gaming, always chasing what’s next and figuring out how to make it work for brands, businesses, and myself. From strategizing for global companies to experimenting with the latest tech, I’ve been on a constant journey of learning and sharing.}

^{This newsletter is where I’ll bring all of that together—my raw thoughts, ideas, and emotions about AI, blockchain, gaming, Gen Z & Alpha, and life in general. No perfection, just me being as real as it gets.}

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