Silicon Valley investors, who once viewed robots as overly complicated, capital-intensive, and unexciting, are now witnessing a significant shift in perspective, largely fueled by the commercial boom in artificial intelligence. This renewed interest is sparking long-held visions to develop humanoid robots capable of mimicking human movements and performing diverse tasks.

Modar Alaoui, a venture capitalist and founder of the Humanoids Summit, recently convened over 2,000 participants, including leading robotics engineers from major companies like Disney and Google, alongside numerous startups. The summit, held in Mountain View, California, served as a platform to showcase emerging technologies and deliberate on strategies to accelerate this nascent industry. Alaoui expressed a growing consensus among researchers that humanoids, or other forms of physically embodied AI, are poised to become the norm, with the primary uncertainty being the timeline for this transformation.

While truly 'general purpose' robots that can seamlessly integrate into workplaces or households remain a distant prospect, entertaining and specialized human-like robots are already making strides. Disney, for instance, is set to deploy a walking robotic version of its 'Frozen' character Olaf in Disneyland theme parks in Hong Kong and Paris early next year. Similarly, Oregon-based Agility Robotics is testing its tote-carrying warehouse robot, Digit, in a Texas distribution facility for Mercado Libre, the Latin American e-commerce giant. Unlike human legs, Digit features inverted, bird-like limbs. Industrial robots, already commonplace in manufacturing for single-task precision, demonstrate a level of speed and accuracy that current humanoids struggle to match.

Despite the growing enthusiasm, a healthy dose of skepticism persists, even at a conference designed to champion the technology. Robotics pioneer Rodney Brooks, co-founder of Roomba vacuum maker iRobot, articulated this skepticism, asserting in a September essay that current humanoid robots will not achieve dexterity despite substantial investments. His views were frequently mentioned at the summit, though he was not in attendance. Also notably absent were representatives for Tesla CEO Elon Musk's Optimus humanoid project, which Musk ambitiously predicted would be