Count iRobot (NASDAQ:IRBT) co-founder Rodney Brooks as one of the skeptics that humanoid robots will be able to deliver on all the promises being made across the industry. Brooks also is the co-founder of Rethink Robotics (maker of the Baxter robot), as well as an emeritus Panasonic Professor at MIT and former director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
In a detailed essay, (Why Today’s Humanoids Won’t Learn Dexterity), Brooks made the point that human hands are incredibly sophisticated, with close to 17,000 specialized touch receptors, which are impossible for a robot to match because human touch receptors are sensitive to spatial details on the scale of a single fingerprint ridge.
Brooks said the other problem for humanoid robots is walking.
“Current humanoid robots do not walk at all like humans. Humans are stretchy springy systems, that very nearly walk without much in the way of neural control. In fact you can see models of biped walkers that are purely mechanical, walking down a gentle slope, with no power supply, relying only on the passive dynamics of the mechanism, and stealing potential energy from the act of walking downhill to power the robot (purely mechanically).”
The risk identified by Brooks is that because full-sized walking humanoid robots pump massive amounts of energy into staying upright, they will be dangerous when they fall.
Looking ahead, Brooks thinks that successful humanoid robots will actually have wheels, multiple arms, and specialized sensors, which means they will not resemble humans in shape and form. For investors, that would mean potentially billions are being spent on a humanoid robot form that will not see mass production.
“There will be many, many robots with different forms for different specialized jobs that humans can do. But they will all still be called humanoid robots. And a lot of money will have disappeared, spent on trying to squeeze performance, any performance, from today’s humanoid robots. But those robots will be long gone and mostly conveniently forgotten,” warned Brooks.
The main players in humanoid robotics include Unitree Robotics, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) Figure AI (BMW is an investor), Boston Dynamics (majority owned by Hyundai (HYMTF)), Agility Robotics, Apptronik (Google is an investor), Engineered Arts, Sanctuary AI, Fourier Intelligence, PAL Robotics, Hanson Robotics, Toyota Research Institute (TM), Shadow Robot Company, Beijing HRIC, EngineAI, Kepler, and Agibot.
Related humanoid robotics ETFs: Roundhill Humanoid Robotics ETF (BATS:HUMN), KraneShares Global Humanoid & Embodied Intelligence Index ETF (NASDAQ:KOID), Themes Humanoid Robotics ETF (NASDAQ:BOTT), Global X Robotics & Artificial Intelligence ETF (NASDAQ:BOTZ), and ROBO Global Robotics & Automation Index ETF (ROBO).