Figure AI CEO Talks Billions of Humanoid Robots

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Figure AI CEO Brett Adcock says “If we can just get humanoids to do work that humans are not wanting to do because there’s a shortfall of humans, we can sell millions of humanoids, billions maybe.”

At the moment, however, Adcock’s firm doesn’t have a prototype that’s ready for market. Figure AI raised a $70 million series A.

Teslabot and Sanctuary AI continue to push ahead with their humanoid robots.

Agility Robotics has built a factory for making 10,000 robots per year. Amazon is testing their robots.

Agility Robotics co-founder and CEO Damion Shelton said the warehouse robot is “just the first use case” of a new generation of robots he hopes will be embraced rather than feared as they prepare to enter businesses and homes.

“So in 10, 20 years, you’re going to see these robots everywhere,” Shelton said. “Forever more, human- centric robots like that are going to be part of human life. So that’s pretty exciting.”

9 thoughts on “Figure AI CEO Talks Billions of Humanoid Robots”

  1. Attempt to create a humanoid robot that can interpret emotion, mood fluctuations, and tone of voice to make it more human-like.

  2. Don’t worry about the millions of unemployed humans. Robots will make great soldiers to solve that “problem.” Don’t believe me? Pay closer attention to the current military conflicts. Drones are everywhere. Couldn’t happen here? Why not. Corporations own everything including AI, robots and the government. If you are concerned about figuring out what skills you will need after robots take all the jobs… start thinking about what it takes to survive drone attacks.

  4. The jobs humans don’t want to do are mostly done by immigrants.

    Harvesting fruit and vegetables, low skill construction labor, cleaning, meat processing, etc.

    Specialized non-humanoid robots are available for many of these jobs. Human labor is often still used because it costs less than the machines.

    Humanoid and non-humanoid robots are more likely to replace higher paid jobs – because there’s a bigger payoff. Factory workers, drivers, miners, oil and gas labor, nurses, surgeons.

    • At the risk, V(ictor?) of being patronizing, don’t you think that it is really far more likely that the ‘jobs’ for the near future’s humanoid robotics is going to best fall into jobs that don’t require broad human specialization, but rather narrow, fairly easily tuned topical expertise?

      For example: small-to-medium scale poking of little electronic parts into circuit boards and soldering them — because of their odd ball shapes — into the board ‘by hand’ … People, and not-at-all to be disparaging, but enormous armies of avid, numerous, reliable, and blessedly low-paying people in places like India, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, China and Bengladesh somehow come to work before dawn, and work until beyond sunset … 6 and even 7 days a week in veritable sweat-shops of little component planting, hand soldering, mass manufacture. By. The. MILLIONS. We simply cannot fathom just how many of these tired, hungry, able and willing people are working every damned week, across Southeast Asia (in particular) and Central America (and beyond) to get our variously useful ‘stuff’ made.

      I studied it in detail a few years back, and was astounded.

      Yet, if I’m being honest, it is these kind of jobs that are particularly vulnerable to early exploitation by the coming fleets of humanoid robotic trainees. Basically tireless, and once trained, nearly error-less and fault-less … the armies of people would be readily displaced (not replaced) by their robotic under lords. As it has always been: the YOUNG hordes have. ALWAYS replaced their older, more experienced, but more costly aunts and uncles. Cut-throat, gnarly, bloody and bitter. Perpetually so, and has been for as long as The Smart Poor have been hacking away at these jobs.

      THey’ll be the first to succumb. No fanfare. No pogroms. No United Nations special counsels or councils for their plights. … … … because there have as yet NEVER BEEN ANY to call out their plight.

      And I predict while thinking as so, that fast-food rubber ducks across The World will be in a similarly unprotected class. It doesn’t take much beyond ‘chimp 2.0’ level intelligence to man deep-fry vats, burger, hot-dog and fried whatever stations. You think not? Just go look at various attempts to train actual chimps to do so. Not much of a problem, short of attention span. Robotics — if anything else — robotics has extraordinary attention span. Veritable SUPER-chimps. Nearly perfect employees. No need for silly union breaks, for smokes, for near-always-every-Monday goddamned zippy drinks, or endless excuses as to why they can’t work over 6 measly hours a day. Talk about 24 … 7…. Basically perfect fast-food employees. And no loss of skills due to colds, Covid, bad relationships, terrible choices of clothing and tattoos.

      Nah. We humans are G O I N G down in the run-of-the-mill employment arena. Because there’s an insanely depressing lot of us that are barely smarter than fruit flies, and yet anxious to kind-of, sort-of get ‘the job’ done in exchange for an exorbitant amount of money, health-care, time-off and eventually geriatric funding.

      Depressed yet?

      We ought to be . This is the naked face of humanity that is going to be almost invisibly sent to the old-fashioned sounding poor-house. And industry, corporations, Fat Cats and Preppy Investors will crow the virtues of relieving all this displaced humanity of their unheralded hardship.

      Right. Freed from working the pit-mines of Uganda, and relegated to picking the garbage dumps of Nairobi, for awhile, for a time.

      I feel cold, desperately hopeless writing this.
      There is no honorable ‘primitive’ story in the end.
      Just unfathomable poverty in the technologically displaced future ahead of us.
      It’s making me tear up, just writing it.
      Damn.
      Goddamn it.

      Just saying, -= GoatGuy =-

      • That’s why all governments of the world need come up with an international standard wage for all people around the world that no longer have jobs to go to

      • And people who have nothing to lose and out of a meal are dangerous.

        If not even the grueling factory or burger flipping jobs remain, what else?

        Just loot, strife and riot. It won’t be sudden or clearly caused by that, but we will see regimes fall and civil wars erupt.

        The world will have to (like it or not) eventually ensure the feeding, sheltering and minimal living conditions of these people that are only good for basic, soon non existent jobs. Because as you said, not everyone is the sharpest tool in the shed and they won’t be able to use, train, much less own the AI systems running the economy.

      • I wish I could say you are wrong.

        You’re not, of course. With extra flourish, you describe exactly the predicament we find ourselves in.

        However, it doesn’t have to end in hopelessness.

        It won’t be easy, and I would not want to diminish the suffering that will undoubtedly result in any scenario.

        But as machines perform all of the jobs, consumers are still needed. Why else produce so many products with that robotic labor?

        It is already slowly becoming the case that industry recognizes that expansive social safety nets benefit them. This is the case in the food industry, as an early-stage example. It does end up becoming a case of “but it’s up to somebody else to pay for it” as those same companies do their damnedest to pay as little in taxes as possible, but hey, I didn’t say this will be easy. Many will suffer waiting for this stuff to be figured out.

        There will be a lot of suffering. But if we can manage to keep ignorance in check, there are balances that can be utilized to the benefit of everyone.

        Then, once global UBI and guaranteed basic services is eventually well-distributed globally, we can finally start to question our (at that point) outdated concepts of money, trade, and price as currently/traditionally conceived.

      • And I agree with the 1st half of your prediction. Cheap, reliable labour will no longer be commissioned to undeveloped countries or immigrants. At some point humanity will face a massive social divide & unrest ( think Elysium movie & others & ww3?). But my expectation is that progress will eventually catchup with all & we transcend our mortal bodies & minds & ….

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