A Skeptic's Guide to Humanoid Robot Videos

But what really makes summer feel like a humanoid summer are the videos. Every month seems to bring a new moody, futuristic video featuring a humanoid staring intensely (or disturbingly) into the camera, jumping around, or sorting things into piles. Sometimes they even talk.

Such videos are currently growing in popularity in robotics. As Goldberg says, you can't just fire up a humanoid robot at home and play around with it, like you can with the latest version of ChatGPT. For anyone looking to ride the AI ​​wave or demonstrate their progress – such as a startup or a scientist looking for lab funding – a good humanoid video is the best marketing tool available. “The images, visualizations and videos – they played a big role,” he says.

But what exactly do they show? I've watched dozens of them this year and I must admit that I often find myself vacillating between awe, fear and boredom. I would have liked a more nuanced view to help me ask the right questions. Goldberg was happy to help me.

Pay attention to the magic of the film

First, some basics. The most important thing is whether a robot is remotely controlled by a human rather than performing tasks autonomously, and whether it is also running off-screen. Unfortunately, you can't tell unless the company discloses it in the video, which isn't always the case.

The second problem is selection bias. How many attempts did it take to get the perfect shot? If a humanoid shows an impressive ability to sort objects but needs 200 attempts to successfully complete the task, that matters.

And finally, is the video sped up? Often, this can make sense if it skips over things that don't show much about the robot (“I don't want to watch the paint dry,” Goldberg says). But if the video is sped up to intentionally hide something or make the robot seem more effective than it is, that's a clue. All of these editing decisions should ideally be disclosed by the robotics company or lab.

Look at the hands

One cliche I've noticed in humanoid videos is that they show off the robot's hands by having the fingers gently curl into a fist. A robot hand with so many usable joints is actually more complex than the grippers shown on industrial robots, Goldberg says, but these humanoid hands may not be capable of what the videos sometimes suggest.

For example, humanoids are often shown holding a box while walking. The footage might make it seem like they're using their hands like humans do — putting their fingers under the box and lifting it up. But often, Goldberg says, the robots are actually just squeezing the box horizontally, with the force coming from the shoulder. It still works, but not in the way I imagined. In most videos, you barely see the hands doing much — which isn't surprising, since the dexterity requires enormously complicated engineering.