Robotics Pioneer Rodney Brooks Warns Investors on ‘Fantasy’ Humanoid Robots

[cryptohog]

Renowned roboticist Rodney Brooks, co-founder of iRobot and longtime MIT professor, is warning investors to temper their expectations for humanoid robots.

In a new essay, Brooks called efforts by companies like Tesla and Figure to teach robots dexterity from human videos “pure fantasy thinking,” arguing that no machine can match the human hand’s roughly 17,000 touch receptors.

He also flagged safety risks, noting that large bipedal robots pump huge amounts of energy into staying upright, making falls dangerous. “Physics means a robot twice the size of today’s models would pack eight times the harmful energy,” he wrote.

Brooks predicts the most viable “humanoid” robots in 15 years will abandon the human form for wheeled platforms, multiple arms and specialized sensors. He says today’s billions are funding training experiments unlikely to scale to mass production.

[kelson10]

Brooks makes a good point—robots don’t need to look human to be effective.

[jacson4]

Billions going into humanoids might just be stepping stones, not the final form.