How do you think this forum's discussions will read back in five years?

[harmonicjen60]

Tangent, but worth mentioning: 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.

[dubois35]

I don't think that's quite right, for what it's worth. 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.

[rao91]

@dubois35 This matches what I've seen too. Roughly 7,000-8,000 commercial humanoids are estimated to be operational worldwide as of mid-2026, which sounds like a lot until you compare it to the millions of industrial arms already installed. '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.'

[carol.robinson]

@rao91 This lines up with my experience. Most flashy demo reels involve some amount of teleoperation, scripted sequencing, or cherry-picked takes - that's not necessarily dishonest, but it does mean the gap between 'demoed' and 'reliably autonomous in production' is still large. 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.