Humanoid robots are the talk of the town at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show., a.k.a. CES.
The Las Vegas tech trade show gives plenty of companies the chance to show off their latest creations, and many brands shined a light on their humanoid robots, which they’re betting is the next step for the tech industry at large, Bloomberg reported.
And there was plenty of bots to go around. California-based DYNA Robotics, for one, showed off its laundry-folding creation, with the machine organizing linens with its arcade game-esque claw “hands.” Singapore-based Sharpa first full-body robot, called North, was able to deal cards for a game of blackjack and snap pictures with a Fujifilm Instax camera, all using what the company describes as a human-like range of motion in its upper body, according to a press release.
DYNA’s robot folding laundry at CES.
Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images
As for LG, it brought its AI capabilities into the physical world with its ClOid, a nearly five-foot-tall robot that gets around on wheels and can load a washing machine—though very slowly, according to Bloomberg. The tech also has the ability to cook and unload the dishwasher. The debut is all part of LG’s goal “to set a new standard for future home life,” the brand’s CEO Lyu Jae-cheol said in a statement.
Of course, the skills of these humanoid robots are being shown off in very controlled environments, so it’s hard to say how they would translate into the real world. And we’re still far from seeing these physical AI creations become fully integrated into society, partly due to their sky-high price tags when their output is a simple task. Other barriers to entry also include ensuring that the bots are actually safe to have in homes and developing their technology so that, instead of being programmed to perform a single job, they can figure out how to respond to their environment on their own. As a result of their current repetitive behavior, these humanoid robots will likely be used for those one-track household tasks in (perhaps no-so) distant future, or in factories, Bloomberg reported.
Boston Dynamics is already taking the factory approach, as its owner, Hyundai, uses its Atlas humanoid robot in its facility in Georgia. The company announced at CES that it had started testing its upgraded Atlas model, too. As for when the rest of this tech will roll into our lives, we’ll just have to wait and see.
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