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The robotics industriousness loves a good , healthy debate . Of late , one of the most intense one centers around humanoid robot . It ’s been a bighearted topic for decades , of course , but the recent proliferation of startup like 1X and Figure — along with project from more established company like Tesla — have put humanoids back in the limelight .
Proponents of the form component point out that we ’ve built our earthly concern to fit ourselves , so it get good sense that we would build up robots like ourselves to fit it . There are also certain advantages in price of reach , the ability to walk up stairs and the manual dexterity that comes with our design .
Of course , anyone who tells you that the human body is the pinnacle of organic machinery is either misinformed or lie to you . I ’ve spent the past year dealing with degenerative disc disease , a utter testament to our imperfect design .
The physical body agent also flies in the face of decades of conventional wisdom that has champion single - purpose robots – that is , machines that are built to do one thing exceedingly well a whole pot of time . And then there ’s the whole “ general purpose ” part , which incline to get tossed around with little sentiment to its implicit in complexity .
Humanoid robots can , however , now take a giving tech name among their social status . Bill Gates this weekissued a listof “ cutting - edge robotics inauguration and labs that I ’m excited about . ” Among the names are three society focused on developing humanoids . The first and most outstanding isAgility , whose Digit robot await the least like a human of the three . Also include areApollo - maker Apptronikand UCLA’sRoMeLa ( Robotics and Mechanisms Lab ) , which is behind the association football - wager ARTEMIS .
Here ’s what Gates has to say about Apptronik ,
What ’s more useful : multiple robots that can each do one task over and over , or one automaton that can do multiple tasks and learn to do even more ? To Apptronik , an Austin - free-base starting time - up that spun out of the human - centered robotics science laboratory at the University of Texas , the answer is obvious . So they ’re building “ general - purpose ” humanoid bi - pedal robots like Apollo , which can be programmed to do a wide-cut array of tasks — from carrying boxes in a manufacturing plant to avail out with household task .
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Writing about Agility , he notes , “ If we want robots to operate in our environments as seamlessly as potential , perhaps those robot should be modeled after people . ” Digit is presently in the lead of the ring in damage of genuine - human beings deployments , including a recent pilot at Amazon warehouses that helped set the microscope stage for Figure ’s recent BMW deal .
Other house bring up in the piece admit robotic perception firm Field AI and Tevel , which build orchard apple tree - picking lagger .
An indorsement like this might not move the acerate leaf too far in the humanoid instruction , and Gates is very much not a roboticist . It is , however , enlightening to see the grade factor go on to gain more mainstream legitimacy by the day .
