"How could humanoid robots reshape the workplace?
Joanna Stern, senior personal-technology columnist at The Wall Street Journal, talked about that future with Peggy Johnson, chief executive of Agility Robotics, at the recent WSJ Tech Live conference.
They were joined onstage by one of the company's Digit robots, a humanoid that demonstrated its potential to learn to perform tasks.
Here are edited excerpts of the conversation.
WSJ: What does Digit do?
PEGGY JOHNSON: It can go into places that are built for humans and take tasks off the human workers' hands -- in particular right now, things that are repetitive and dirty and sometimes backbreaking. Those are the sorts of tasks that we're focused on.
It's built to be a multipurpose robot. But the tasks right now are really focused on material handling and moving things, largely in logistics, facilities, warehouses, things like that.
WSJ: And does Digit have a job right now?
JOHNSON: Digit gets paid to work right now at a company called GXO. They are a logistics provider. And we're actually moving Spanx.
Digit, all day long, just moves product off these small tugs -- autonomous mobile robots -- and turns around and puts them on a conveyor belt, over and over and over again. So you can understand how nobody really wants these jobs. These are the areas that Digit can step in and take these kinds of tasks that most people don't want to do.
WSJ: How many Digits are actually out working?
JOHNSON: We have several of our alpha units out there, but we're right now building our commercial units in our factory in Salem, Ore. That factory is built for 10,000 units a year. And those are the ones that we will send to more customers before the end of the year.
WSJ: You've emphasized how people don't want these jobs, but there is this big fear right now about automation. We just had the dockworkers' strike, where people are very fearful about automation coming and taking these jobs. Is that something you're hearing from the clients who are buying Digits?
JOHNSON: We feared we would hear that, but actually what we're finding is this usually is a part of someone's day, it's not their entire day, because it is backbreaking work. But Digit can take this task off their hands, and then that same worker who is doing the physical movement of the boxes can now become a digital worker, because they're being trained to be the manager of the fleet of robots. So they have the opportunity to upskill into a digital job.
The bigger bar is the safety bar. Right now, humanoids have to operate in what's called a work cell. That's sort of a low barrier [that keeps them contained in a certain space]. They don't interact with humans at all right now. The next step is something called cooperative safety. And we are building that right now.
We'll have a commercial robot out within the next two years that's cooperatively safe, which means it can bust out of that work cell. And then if the manager says, can you go down to the loading dock and get the box that's sitting there, bring it back up here to me, Digit can do that. And it can walk near humans safely. Humans do unexpected things and you have to react and it has to be quick.
WSJ: How much does Digit cost?
JOHNSON: It's in the neighborhood of, say, a luxury car.
But we have many of our customers looking at robots as a service. So they pay a monthly fee for the use of it. It brings down the barrier while they're testing out the technology. And that's really helped adoption of the robot.
WSJ: So $100,000 to buy one, below or above?
JOHNSON: A little bit above.
WSJ: Below $200,000?
JOHNSON: Below. But we will bring that cost down very, very quickly. The most difficult part of the robot are the actuators. Those are the things that move the arms and the legs. But the rest of it, a lot of it is off-the-shelf parts. So inn volume we will be able to drive that price down.
WSJ: Today you're also going to show something new for the first time on stage.
JOHNSON: Yes. We'll show Digit's AI capabilities. There are a couple of ways that you can give Digit commands. You can give it a voice command. You can give it a text command.
WSJ: It's using a large language model to take commands.
JOHNSON: Yes. You can imagine over time the ability to teach Digit new skills very quickly as there's more data that's collected. Over time that will help bring Digit into new industries and eventually the home.
Here, we're going to teach Digit how to sort laundry. I'm going to give Digit a command on this iPad: "Pick up the purple Tech Things T-shirt and put it in the laundry hamper." So, here is Digit picking up the purple shirt [and putting it in the hamper].
WSJ: Two things are happening: You're using the large language model to one, understand the voice input or the text input, and two, use visual recognition to pick up that specific item.
JOHNSON: Yes. This is the sort of skill that Digit can learn and it can be transferred to many different areas.
By the way, Digit's hands are interchangeable in our next generation, and that opens up a whole set of new areas where whatever the job requires, you can put a bespoke tool. Without changing all of Digit, you can just change out the hand.
WSJ: Why does it need to be a humanoid?
JOHNSON: If you think about it, the world is built for humans. And humanoids turn out the be a really good device to go down narrow aisles, and to reach up to the height of any shelf above it." [1]
1. Technology (A Special Report) --- The Future of Humanoid Robots: Peggy Johnson of Agility Robotics gives a demo of the company's Digit -- a robot that can, among other things, sort laundry. Stern, Joanna. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 28 Oct 2024: R.6.
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