The world is just not quite ready for humanoids yet

Famed roboticist and iRobot founder Rodney Brooks has sounded the alarm on a humanoid robot investment bubble. He’s not the only one. In a recent essay, Brooks calls out the billions of venture dollars being poured into humanoid robot companies like Figure. His take: Despite the amount of money being injected into the industry, humanoids won’t be able to learn dexterity — or the fine motor movements with hands — rendering them essentially useless. His take might surprise some, especially those VCs investing in the sector. But not the multiple robotics-focused VCs and AI scientists who have told TechCrunch in recent months that they don’t expect to see wide adoption of humanoid robots for at least a few years — if not more than a decade. Fady Saad, a general partner at robotics-focused VC Cybernetix Ventures, expressed skepticism about actual use cases and safety, especially in home environments. Sanja Fidler from Nvidia compared the current hype to the early days of self-driving cars, noting that full autonomy and scaling are incredibly difficult. Tesla's Optimus and Figure have also faced scrutiny regarding their actual deployment and capabilities. Despite the skepticism, Brooks believes humanoids will eventually exist, though they may look different than expected. Startups like Proception and Loomia are working on dexterity, while companies like K-Scale Labs and Hugging Face are seeing early demand through pre-orders.