Recent advances in deep learning, especially relating to robot control, have caused some people to get very excited about the prospect of humanoid robots. Some predict they’ll be the next major breakthrough after ChatGPT.
But we’ve heard stuff like this before. In 2012, much of the automobile industry predicted they would have fully autonomous vehicles ready by 2020. Billions of dollars were spent on research and development by manufacturers and roboticists.
Today, almost every manufacturer has abandoned the idea – it was just too difficult and costly to make them work. Humanoid robots are much more complicated than autonomous vehicles. Their environments are more varied and the safety issues are immense. How close? They’re well beyond the horizon.
This article is an answer to the question (asked by John Awbery, via email) 'How close are we to mass-producing humanoid robots?'
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