The experts predict that the next major categories for robotics could be agriculture, transportation, and last-mile delivery. They also discuss the potential for home robots beyond vacuums, with some predicting that robots capable of decluttering will be available within the next decade. However, they agree that true general-purpose robots are still a distant reality, requiring breakthroughs in multiple fields. The article concludes with a discussion on the underreported trend of the transformation of supply chains due to progress in technologies like computers, perception sensors, and power sources.
Key takeaways:
- Generative AI is expected to play a significant role in the future of robotics, enhancing robots' ability to generalize across tasks, adapt to new environments, and learn autonomously.
- Humanoid form factor presents unique challenges in terms of balance and coordination, but it has the potential to be extremely versatile and intuitively usable in a variety of social and practical contexts.
- True general-purpose robots, capable of performing a wide range of tasks across different environments, may still be a distant reality, requiring breakthroughs in multiple fields.
- Home robots beyond vacuums are expected to gradually evolve from being task-specific to being more multi-functional and eventually general purpose, but there are still significant challenges to overcome.