Just because a robot can walk, doesn’t mean it can work

In a video published this week by China’s UBTech, hundreds of the firm’s humanoid robots march in unison, lining up neatly or stomping in rhythm, as they pack themselves into delivery trucks. The company claims it has made its first mass shipments of the robots to customers, something rival robot-makers like Tesla and Figure are yet to do.

Comments on the video are the usual mix of doom and awe. The robots are coming to take our jobs. They look like a robot military force. Imagine if they had weapons. But for the more sceptical viewer, many questions are raised.

Is synchronised mass marching a feature of the robots, or is it just for show? Are they as off-balance as they look? Why not show footage of them performing work tasks? Why put robots in workspaces designed for humans at all? How autonomous are the robots, especially in unfamiliar locations? Is any of the footage sped up, edited or enhanced by CGI? How are they really delivered? Surely not standing unsecured in the backs of trucks.

Most importantly, who is ordering the robots and for what purpose? The implication of the announcement is that the robots are ready for work, but what can they actually do?

UBTech makes a few different models of robot. These Walker S2 units are promoted as industrial factory personnel, which can operate autonomously and indefinitely thanks to their ability to change their own batteries.

They have dextrous hands, a rotating waist and a human-like gait, and promotional illustrations show them performing tasks such as squatting to lift heavy boxes and sorting small components. The company said it has had multiple orders from Chinese companies – including a data-collection centre, a “major enterprise” and a government-backed carmaker – and plans to deliver 500 robots by the end of 2025. UBTech’s share price has gained more than 150 per cent this year.

An illustration shows how the Walker S2 units could work in a factory.Credit: UBTech

Yet while several companies love to tout their humanoid robots as the future workforce (and while people seem to love throwing money at those companies), it’s hard not to wonder how a long-limbed and top-heavy bipedal automaton could possibly be the most sensible design for factory work. And it doesn’t take much scrutiny to start poking holes in this idea that humanoid robotic workers are already here and ready to serve.

If you discount flashy and highly edited promotional videos, there just isn’t any evidence of humanoid robots working effectively or efficiently.

Most companies involved in humanoid robotics, including Tesla, are nowhere near shipping off robots to work autonomously. Public demonstrations are limited to moving and walking in highly controlled conditions, robots that are tethered or harnessed, or robots that are piloted remotely by humans.

Simply being able to get up, walk to a spot and complete a manual task, though simple for a human, is astronomically complex for a robot, and not really a reflection of the technology’s current capabilities. As was demonstrated by a much-hyped Russian robot this month when it stumbled drunkenly and fell on its face, seconds after being publicly unveiled.

Toby Walsh, scientia professor of artificial intelligence at the University of NSW, said there were very few sensible applications for person-shaped robots, and factory work was not among them.

“Humanoid robots are a terrible form factor. It’s incredibly hard to get a robot to walk,” he said.

“First of all, putting wheels on a robot is much better. Much easier to make them move around. Also, the human hand? Opposable thumbs? Really difficult to engineer. There are much easier ways to build things if you break away from having to make them in the shape of humans.”

In fact, there are already successful robot-staffed factories. The robots just aren’t tottering around on two legs. They’re doing the welding and painting in car manufacturing with their articulating arms. Or they’re gliding around the floor moving massive stacks of product at the Amazon fulfilment centre in Sydney. They’re in facilities designed for robots. Imagine how much longer it would take for a humanoid robot to do either of those jobs, in a space designed for humans.

Elon Musk has suggested Tesla’s Optimus robots could do everything from manual labour to following criminals to stop them re-offending.Credit: Bloomberg

Walsh said he was pleased to see robotics companies receive funding, but that he worried human-shaped robots were a distraction from projects that would be ultimately more useful.

“There are going to be lots of ways we can take humans out of the equation physically. And equally, robots may help us advance the intelligence of AI. Physical AI is an exciting and potentially transformative step that we’re going to make,” he said.

“But none of that requires humanoids.”

So why are robotics companies so determined to build human-shaped robots, and pour billions of dollars into making them walk and work like people?

The answer is that, like a depressing amount of recent technological innovation, humanoid robots aren’t built for optimal productivity or any kind of benefit to society in general. They’re built to attract investment money. Just like with virtual reality and artificial intelligence, tech companies are pulling from popular science fiction as a shortcut to making their products seem capable and worthwhile.

Humans are designed to accept that human-like qualities are exceptional. When we’re shown an AI model that can put sentences together, it’s easy for us to believe it’s intelligent and can make reliable decisions. When we see a robot walking on two legs, it’s easy for us to believe it’s physically capable and can work. Of course, neither is necessarily true.

Walsh said that in the future, worker robots would come in all shapes and sizes to fulfil specialised tasks, and would only be human-shaped if absolutely necessary.

“You’ll find humanoid robots when you go to the shopping centre, if it’s something that’s designed to interact with humans,” he said.

“The humanoid form is there not because it’s functional, but because it’s appealing.”

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