Humanoid robots take center stage at Silicon Valley summit, but skepticism remains

The gathering exposed a wide gap between current demonstrations and the ‘general purpose’ machines that could work productively in homes and workplaces, while underscoring a deepening contest between the United States and China for leadership in a nascent but heavily funded industry.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — More than 2,000 engineers, investors and researchers gathered at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California this week for the Humanoids Summit, where companies from Disney to a field of Chinese startups showcased their latest walking machines and debated whether humanoid robots can become a commercially viable industry.

The conference, held Thursday and Friday just blocks from Google’s headquarters, was organized by Modar Alaoui, founder and general partner of ALM Ventures, who said many researchers now believe humanoids will be “going to become the norm.”

“The question is really just how long it will take,” Alaoui said.

Showcase and skepticism

Disney’s contribution to the field — a walking robotic version of the “Frozen” character Olaf — is set to roam on its own through Disneyland theme parks in Hong Kong and Paris early next year. While entertaining machines like Olaf have arrived, the timeline for “general purpose” robots capable of working productively in a household or workplace remains considerably farther out.

“The humanoid space has a very, very big hill to climb,” said Cosima du Pasquier, co-founder of Haptica Robotics, a company working to give robots a sense of touch. “There’s a lot of research that still needs to be solved.”

Du Pasquier, a Stanford University postdoctoral researcher who incorporated her startup just a week before the conference, said the attendees themselves represent the industry’s earliest customers. “The first customers are really the people here,” she said.

China leads in companies and government backing

Researchers at McKinsey & Company have counted about 50 companies worldwide that have raised at least $100 million to develop humanoid robots, led by about 20 in China and about 15 in North America. Displays by Chinese firms dominated the expo section of the summit.

China’s lead stems in part from government incentives for component production and robot adoption, along with a government mandate to “have a humanoid ecosystem established by 2025,” said McKinsey partner Ani Kelkar. The most prevalent humanoids at the conference were those made by China’s Unitree, partly because researchers in the United States buy the relatively inexpensive model to test their own software.

Jeff Burnstein, president of the Association for Advancing Automation — a trade group founded in 1974 — said the United States retains strong technology and AI expertise but acknowledged where the current momentum lies.

“Right now, China has certainly a lot more momentum on humanoids,” Burnstein said after touring the expo.

Prominent skeptics, notable absences

One prominent voice missing from the conference was robotics pioneer Rodney Brooks, a co-founder of Roomba maker iRobot, who wrote in September that “today’s humanoid robots will not learn how to be dexterous despite the hundreds of millions, or perhaps many billions of dollars, being donated by VCs and major tech companies to pay for their training.” His essay was frequently cited by attendees despite his absence.

Also missing was any representative for Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s humanoid project, called Optimus. Musk said three years ago that people can probably buy an Optimus “within three to five years.”

Some commercial applications already moving forward

Some robots with human elements are already being tested in workplaces. Oregon-based Agility Robotics announced shortly before the conference that it is bringing its tote-carrying warehouse robot Digit to a Texas distribution facility operated by Mercado Libre, the Latin American e-commerce company.

Industrial robots performing single tasks are already common in car assembly and other manufacturing, working at speeds and with a precision that current humanoids — or humans themselves — cannot match.

Alaoui, who previously worked on driver attention systems for the automotive industry, said he sees parallels between the current moment in humanoid robotics and the early years of self-driving cars. Near the entrance to the summit venue sat a museum exhibit showing Google’s bubble-shaped 2014 self-driving car prototype. Eleven years later, robotaxis operated by Google affiliate Waymo travel the streets nearby.