Welcome, sci-fi realists…

This week, AGIBOT put six of its G2 humanoids in a Shanghai convenience store to work a 24-hr shift. They called the experiment “Robots Never Clock Out,” which might sound ominous to human convenience store workers, but the results were a mixed bag. Four of the G2s pulled it off without a bathroom break while the other 2 failed at their jobs.

All six were powered by AGIBOT’s Genie Master AI framework to take on mult-step tasks like serving food. Put together, they completed 1,730 unique tasks (but who’s counting?). One of the six G2s was on cleaning duty until it found a full trash can in its path and couldn’t figure out how to navigate around it, so it hilariously left the store and quit. Another found stocking a shelf to be too taxing, meaning humanoids won’t be stocking beef jerky at your corner store anytime soon.

We still find it impressive that the other four could do their jobs well for a full day without literally short-circuiting. 

Anyway, here's what you need to know about robotics right now:

Two humanoids pull off an 8-hour shift in a car factory

Another Chinese tech company tested out full-time, blue-collar humanoid workers this week, this time in its electric vehicle factory. For those unfamiliar with the company Xiaomi, it has long been a smartphone maker but it also makes cars now, too. 

Xiaomi had two of its CyberOne 02 humanoids work the same 8-hr shift sorting side covers for center consoles in their cars the whole time. Humanoids already excel at repetitive tasks that don’t require any detour, so the real surprise here is that they lasted the whole time with no malfunctions reported.

While the results were a still-functioning CyberOne 02 duo without any overheated components, Xiaomi didn’t tell us how many side covers these “coworkers” successfully sorted over eight hours. So, this story is less about success rates and more of a strict endurance exercise. 

What this likely means for the future: As the Electrek article explains, humanoids on wheels are more efficient for flat factory floors, since humanoid legs are considerably slower and clunkier. Xiaomi wants to take its humanoids to homes with staircases to do basic chores instead. That’s what humanoid legs are good for after all.

Robots in Action

Xiaomi put out actual footage of their humanoid workers sorting these parts. The reel was sped up to fit as much of the 8-hr shift as possible in under a minute.  Check it out in this YouTube Short below:

Around the Horn

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Weekly Feature: Bots Behaving Badly

Unitree had one of their G1 humanoids compete in a mountain climbing competition this past week. The challenge was to ascend Mount Taishan in China and prove humanoids had the endurance to do so, but this G1 did the opposite: It suffered a heatstroke and tapped out of the competition. Unitree blamed the incident on a lack of humanoid tuning, but didn’t go into detail about which components were unable to last. 

This incident is sparking debate about whether humanoids are up to demanding tasks that need endurance, other than just walking around on flat surfaces for a limited time. Endurance, thermal stability, and adaptability to tough terrains are the challenges Unitree needs to address. We consider this a learning experience rather than a complete failure. 

Industry Signals

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