Famed roboticist says humanoid robot bubble is doomed to burst

Renowned roboticist Rodney Brooks, co-founder of iRobot and former MIT researcher, warns that the current enthusiasm around humanoid robots is overly optimistic and likely to collapse. He criticizes companies like Tesla and Figure for relying on teaching robots dexterity through videos of humans performing tasks, calling this method “pure fantasy thinking.” Brooks highlights the complexity of the human hand, which contains about 17,000 specialized touch receptors—a level of tactile sophistication that no robot currently approaches. Unlike advances in speech recognition and image processing, which benefited from decades of data collection, robotics lacks a comparable foundation of touch data. Brooks also raises safety concerns, noting that full-sized humanoid robots consume large amounts of energy to maintain balance, making falls dangerous. He explains that larger robots would pose exponentially greater risks due to the physics of energy impact. Predicting the future of robotics, Brooks believes that successful robots in 15 years will likely abandon the human form, instead featuring wheels, multiple arms, and specialized sensors tailored to