A creepy robot — featuring arms, legs and two eyes, but no other facial features — has stepped up alongside actual workers in warehouses for the first time to lift heavy boxes and containers.
The humanoid looking autobot, named Apollo, stands 5-foot-8 and weighs 160 pounds as it moves items weighing as much as 55 pounds, according to its designer, Austin, Texas-based tech company Apptronik.
The startup, which would not divulge where Apollo has been deployed, said its robot is designed to perform menial tasks — and could one day do chores around the house.
“Initially, it’s going to start working in the supply chain — doing basic material handling tasks, moving boxes and totes,” Apptronik CEO Jeff Cardenas told the news site Axios.
Apollo, however, can’t put it in a full, eight-hour shift on one one charge. Its battery lasts just four hours.
Cardenas said that his company has so far built two Apollo robots with another four in production.
Economists believe that robots like Apollo — once mass produced and introduced into the market — could fill jobs in fields like elderly care, manufacturing and security.
“Science fiction has promised us these for a long time,” Cardenas told Axios.
While the current iteration of Apollo “has initial applications,” Cardenas said “it’s a software update away from a new feature or functionality.”
Apollo may even one day help with housework — like Rosie from “The Jetsons.”
“Long term, really the sky’s the limit in terms of what these types of systems will be able to do,” Cardenas said.
For now, the company plans to produce fewer than 100 beta versions that will be put to work outside the lab.
“From there, we move into full production, by the end of 2024,” Cardenas said.
Other firms that are among the leaders in the race to build human-like robots include Tesla, Boston Dynamics, Samsung Electronics and Hanson Robotics.
Last year, Tesla said it was planning to have “thousands” of humanoid robots within its factories.
At a concert-like show last year, the company unveiled Optimus, which is said to be learning to navigate on its own, sense the world around it, and pick things up on its own.
Boston Dynamics unveiled “Atlas,” considered the world’s most advanced humanoid robot which has proven capable of walking, dancing, back-flipping, and vaulting.
Last year, Goldman Sachs published a report which predicted that humanoid robots “could be economically viable in factory settings between 2025 to 2028, and in consumer applications between 2030 and 2035.”
The Wall Street investment bank “estimates a $6 billion market (or more) in people-sized-and-shaped robots is achievable in the next 10 to 15 years.”
“Such a market would be able to fill 4% of the projected US manufacturing labor shortage by 2030 and 2% of global elderly care demand by 2035,” Goldman predicted.
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