Humanoid robots that dance, do somersaults, and perform kung fu moves are fascinating, but they say little about how they can help us in real life. If anything, the only insight we gain from this is that robot hardware has reached a level where it can perform boring, dangerous, or hazardous tasks that should be taken off our hands.
Brett Adcock shares this view. Some time ago, he called on other robot manufacturers to release minutes-long, unedited videos showing robots not just performing a few spectacular moves, but autonomously carrying out meaningful tasks. He himself took the lead with several videos showing how Figures robots stock a refrigerator, load and unload a dishwasher, or tidy up the living room.
Now Figure took it a step further: four humanoid robots (Figure 03) were tasked with sorting packages completely autonomously, taking turns until they failed—that is, until a mechanical or software error occurred. The task was clear: different types of packages and parcels were pushed toward the robot, which then had to move them onto a conveyor belt with the address label facing down. The whole process was streamed live, and four humanoids took turns. During breaks, the robots were recharged and their joints and chips were cooled. After 200 hours, the experiment was concluded without reaching the originally targeted failure point, and the team celebrated with champagne.
Over the course of 200 hours, the robots sorted nearly 250,000 packages, working 24 hours a day. Their speed was 99% that of a human, and the error rate was also kept within limits, though there is still room for improvement here. How do we know this? Well, for 10 hours, a human intern joined the competition and sorted nearly 12,000 packages—about 200 more than a Figure robot did in the same period. After 10 hours, the shift—interrupted by breaks for coffee, lunch, and bathroom breaks—was over for the intern, while the Figure robot simply kept going. And unlike the intern, it had no blisters on its fingers after 10 or even 200 hours.
What can we learn from this livestream? First of all, that humanoid robots are on their way to reliably taking over such monotonous tasks. Second, that this can lead to a massive increase in productivity and, consequently, lower costs. Third, that the Figure engineers are heartless. Not because they made the robots work so hard, but because none of them congratulated the robots after the 200 hours were up; instead, they simply let them walk to the charging station without a second glance. I would have at least liked to see a high-five between the robots and the engineers.