The Robotics Play No One Is Talking About

Dear Reader,

Amazon, Nvidia, Microsoft, and OpenAI just pumped $2.6 billion into a little-known robotics company.

The California-based company called Figure is turning heads with a new humanoid robot built to complete tasks that are too dangerous or too mundane for us measly humans.

In fact, BMW’s South Carolina plant just added one of Figure’s robots to its assembly line to place sheet metal.

And get this… It’s all powered using OpenAI’s machine learning algorithms.

If you’ll remember, OpenAI is the company behind ChatGPT, which has completely taken the world by storm in the last year.

According to Forbes, “The humanoid is fully autonomous, with neural networks that map pixels from facial cameras directly to actions. The machine learning language model converts data from the robot’s cameras into movements — all powered by technology from OpenAI.”

Coming in at 5’ 3” and 132 pounds, the robot is shown on video picking up sheet pieces of sheet metal, putting them in place, and even self-correcting its mistakes. Forbes notes, “Navigation is accomplished solely through simulated object training — meaning, the robot is fully autonomous, self-correcting, and self-learning.”

Now, Tesla also unveiled its own humanoid robot called Optimus at an investor conference near the end of 2022. It received mixed reviews from critics and investors.

Elon revealed two prototype robots, one that slowly walked on stage and waved at the audience. The other had to be wheeled out by three helpers, with Musk assuring the crowd that it was still a “work in progress.”

He looked at the machine that was mounted to a stand and said, “This means a future of abundance, a future where there is no poverty, where you can have whatever you want.”

He then played a video of it performing simple tasks like watering plants and lifting metal bars in a factory.

To convince the audience of its usefulness, he said, “It really is a fundamental transformation of civilization as we know it.”

Like I said, the reviews weren’t very good…

According to Wired, Fetch Robotics CEO Melonee Wise said, “The idea that this will be doing anything useful in five years is laughable.”

Georgia Chalvatzaki, assistant professor at Technische Universität Darmstadt, posted, “Looking at the Tesla bot as a roboticist, I am impressed by what the engineers achieved for this prototype in a year. However, the behaviors demonstrated are less impressive than that of Honda’s Asimo from 20 years ago. What excites me is the idea of cheap and accessible hardware.”

Despite the bad press, the $500 billion robotics industry is moving forward at a blistering pace.

Figure CEO Brett Addock says the company could sell billions of these working bots.

But the major challenge in robotics and AI — besides the electrical and mechanical engineering and neuro-networking — is to create an object that looks realistic without evoking the “uncanny valley” response.

The uncanny valley hypothesis states that the more human-like or realistic an object looks, the more it creates a sense of unease or revulsion.

As of now, robotics and AI aren’t advanced enough to produce objects that look 100% realistic.

There’s always something a little off.

The tiny wrinkles in the skin and face or the nuances of body language…

Robotics expert Christian Hubicki noted that in order to combat this phenomenon, Optimus was using a complex form of balance called zero-moment point:

Let’s talk walking. I told my lab today that I expected it to walk on stage, and it did, but I was a bit surprised at how they did it. It seems to use a method called zero-moment point to maintain balance. It’s been used in various forms since the 1990s. You see ZMP in the bent knees and how it shifts its weight over to its next foot before taking a step. It’s pretty safe, but not mind- blowing in 2022. Also, people don’t walk quite like this. We are more efficient — we stick our foot out, fall, catch, repeat.

Analytics India Magazine seconded that opinion:

Therefore, assumably, by training, locomotion planning, and scanning the walking path and surface in front of it, the steps that Optimus takes by calculating the hip trajectory and bending its knees to ensure all the force is on its center of gravity, seems to be working on a method based on zero-moment point calculation.

Musk wants Optimus to function as a utilitarian bot used to replace workers, and with a purported price tag of $20,000, it might entice some investors.

University of Toronto assistant professor Animesh Garg said, “The community needs to find a revenue-positive pathway to support this development.”

That revenue pathway could come in the form of how we communicate with robots through language that feels natural, thereby alleviating the uncanny valley phenomenon.

And this is the area most overlooked by investors today.

The way we communicate with AI bots is called conversational AI, and it’s been hailed as the Holy Grail of AI investment.

Those same multitrillion-dollar companies that invested in these robots are also quietly investing in this conversational tech.

Bill Gates alone has invested $20 billion so far — double what he invested in OpenAI.

Soon, these humanoid robots are going to come equipped with a conversational chat function akin to ChatGPT but much more humanlike.

And there’s really only one company pioneering this tech, and once it comes online, it could see a potential 5,300% increase in the coming years.

Get the full story here.

Stay frosty,

Alexander Boulden
Editor, Wealth Daily

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After Alexander’s passion for economics and investing drew him to one of the largest financial publishers in the world, where he rubbed elbows with former Chicago Board Options Exchange floor traders, Wall Street hedge fund managers, and International Monetary Fund analysts, he decided to take up the pen and guide others through this new age of investing.

Alexander is the investment director of Insider Stakeout — a weekly investment advisory service dedicated to tracking the smartest money on the planet so that his readers can achieve life-altering, market-beating returns. He also serves at the managing editor for R.I.C.H. Report, a comprehensive service that uses the highest-quality investment research and strategies that guides its members in growing their wealth on top of preserving it.

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