Safety standards for humanoids working near people - where do we stand?

[deborahperez]

@barbara.jones From what I've seen: Open-source humanoid projects matter less for out-competing the well-funded players and more for keeping the barrier to entry low enough that new ideas and new people can actually get into the field. The safety case for humanoids working near people usually leans on compliant/backdrivable joints plus soft force limits, but there isn't yet a mature, widely-adopted standard equivalent to what industrial arms have had for decades.

[ethan_fisc]

I'd take that specific number with a grain of salt, honestly. Automotive plants ended up as the first serious proving ground for humanoids mostly because they already have structured environments, safety processes, and budget for automation - not because car assembly is uniquely suited to bipeds.

[carlossanchez]

Tangent, but worth mentioning: The 'humanoid' form factor mostly wins on infrastructure compatibility, not raw efficiency - stairs, doors, and tools were all built for a human body plan, so a legged, two-armed robot slots into existing spaces without retrofitting them. The labor-substitution narrative gets simplified a lot in pitch decks; the more honest framing right now is 'augmenting understaffed, high-turnover roles' rather than wholesale replacement.

[ethan_fisc]

Still learning the space, so correct me if wrong - Wheeled-torso designs solve 90% of warehouse and light-industrial tasks with far less complexity than a biped, which is exactly why so many 'humanoid' demos quietly have wheels under a skirt.

[carol.robinson]

@ethan_fisc One nitpick - The uncanny valley matters a lot less in a warehouse than in a living room - nobody cares if a picking robot looks a little stiff, but a home-companion robot with a slightly-off gait reads as unsettling fast. Wheeled-torso designs solve 90% of warehouse and light-industrial tasks with far less complexity than a biped, which is exactly why so many 'humanoid' demos quietly have wheels under a skirt.

[kwilliams]

Here's the relevant bit as far as I understand it: A lot of the current wave genuinely is repackaged 2000s and 2010s research (ZMP walking, whole-body control, DARPA-era grasping) combined with two things that weren't available then: cheap high-torque-density actuators and large-scale learned policies. Elder care is one of the most emotionally appealing use cases and also one of the hardest, because it demands both physical safety around fragile people and social/communication skill that's still far behind the manipulation hype. Makes me wonder how this looks in another five years.

[ramirez77]

@kwilliams I'd take that specific number with a grain of salt, honestly. The safety case for humanoids working near people usually leans on compliant/backdrivable joints plus soft force limits, but there isn't yet a mature, widely-adopted standard equivalent to what industrial arms have had for decades. 'General purpose' in 2026 mostly means 'can be reprogrammed for a new task without new hardware,' not 'can walk into any environment and figure things out unsupervised.'

[servoken70]

I'll believe the stronger version of that claim when it's independently verified. A lot of the current wave genuinely is repackaged 2000s and 2010s research (ZMP walking, whole-body control, DARPA-era grasping) combined with two things that weren't available then: cheap high-torque-density actuators and large-scale learned policies. Anyway, good thread - following for more.