Unloading the dishwasher. Tightening a bolt. Fighting in a war. Treating your mental health. All things robots will soon be able to do at scale, according to investors and founders — and in some cases, it’s already possible.
“[My son’s] 17th birthday will mark the last day [he] ever empties the dishwasher. Today, he is seven,” Benjamin Erhart, general partner of Munich-based deeptech investor UVC Partners, tells Sifted.
Founders and VCs have been increasingly drawn to the robotics industry, with investors pouring roughly €846m into the space in the last year, according to Sifted data. As AI and robotics advance together, Sifted asked a couple of robotics-focused VCs and founders what they think the industry will look like in 10 years — and they dreamed big.
“In 10 years, the robot will be able to do any task a human can do and beyond,” predicts David Reger, founder and CEO of German startup Neura Robotics — which builds robots capable of ‘seeing’, walking and manipulating objects.
Bernt Børnich, founder and CEO of humanoid-maker 1X Technologies, believes that whereas right now interactions with robots “are at best ok”, soon they’ll be “as intuitive to interface with as humans.”
From how robots operate in the workforce to the home and beyond, here’s how insiders think the robotics industry will shape up in the next decade.
The labourers
One of the main vocations founders and VCs see robots taking over is that of labourers — who do things like bricklaying (which robots are already doing) and maintaining critical infrastructure.
In 10 years’ time, “autonomous robotic maintenance systems will become commonplace, proactively managing infrastructure in urban environments, from repairing roads to maintaining renewable energy facilities,” argues Sebastian Böhmer, founding partner at deeptech VC First Momentum Ventures. “Equipped with advanced AI, these robots will detect issues before they escalate, thereby significantly reducing downtime and the need for human intervention. The result will be more sustainable and resilient cities, driven by constant, automated upkeep and an unprecedented gain in manufacturing productivity.”
Erhart, whose firm backs Neura, as well as industrial-focused Fruitcore Robotics, thinks the next decade for industrial robots will be more about “steady progress, not revolution.”
He believes that in light of innovations in building affordable, solid hardware by Chinese companies, “robots are getting cheaper, tougher and easier to integrate — maybe even with only little need for fancy AI or deeptech.” Cobots (robots working alongside humans in the workplace) will “keep growing but remain a niche — in most cases it still makes more sense to remove the human entirely,” says Erhart.
Manufacturing is driven more than ever “by the lack of qualified human labour and cost pressure,” adds Erhart. It’s something Reger is thinking about, too: he believes that in the next 10 years, robots will mainly function to fill the gap of the lost workforce owing to ageing populations worldwide and an expected multi-millions-large labour shortfall.
A member of the household
Robotics founders like Børnich and Reger are dreaming up a future where there will be a robot in every household, doing mundane chores.
The robots’ future role in the home may even change interpersonal human dynamics and relationships. When failing to unload the dishwasher or clean the apartment may have caused a rift in a relationship in the past, in 10 years Reger thinks “this pressure will go away, because you have a defined role […] you can both talk bad about a robot — like, ‘why is this robot stupid?’ Or, ‘why is this company behind this stupid robot not able to solve that stupid issue?’ I think this will [bring] humans closer again.”
While the “potential is massive” for such robots, however, “so are the technical hurdles,” argues Erhart.
He says the “main challenge isn’t just algorithms — it’s data. Especially for manipulation, you need force, tactile and interaction data at scale.”
“Video and imitation learning alone won’t cut it,” adds Erhart. “My bet is that smart synthesis of all available data sources will finally turn robots smart”; in the next five years, “we’ll likely see teleoperated humanoids with haptic suits [a wearable device to transmit feedback] out in the field collecting real-world data.”
Dystopia: robotic soldiers, girlfriends and emotionally-intelligent companions
Robots are already starting to look like the stuff of sci-fi movies — and some predict we may see companies developing increasingly dystopian machines in the future.
For one, Reger thinks we’ll see humanoids on the battlefield “very soon” — something he disapproves of. He also suspects we may have humanoid partners, too — a trend that’s already happening with AI girlfriends and boyfriends.
But Reger adds a caveat. “Everyone is asking me, like, ‘Will robots get bad one day and take over the world?’” His take? “They don’t have a soul or something. They will never be good or bad. They will be defined by the company behind or the humans behind [it].”
Some VCs predict robots will be able to feel — or at least pretend like they do. And they will perform less scary, but very personal, tasks in the future. “Emotionally intelligent companion robots capable of genuinely adaptive human interaction will emerge, supporting mental health, elderly care and personalised education,” suggests Böhmer. “These humanoids will recognise and interpret complex emotional states through advanced AI-driven empathy and contextual awareness, going far beyond the limited conversational agents and robotic assistants we have today.”
He goes a step further. In the future, robots will be able to “understand subtle non-verbal cues, emotions and social contexts, enabling seamless teamwork,” suggests Böhmer. “Rather than controlling them directly, humans will increasingly rely on robots as proactive partners anticipating their needs.”
For 1X’s Børnich, it’s simple: “humanoids that are true companions to man will exist in abundance.”
The US, China dominating
Much as they’d like, European founders and VCs don’t see the continent as the leader in the robotics industry 10 years from now; the US and China have the upper hand with the burgeoning tech.
“China is already dominating this space. Why? Because, simply, it’s the only country [with] a serious goal to progress in robotics in a certain time frame,” says Reger. Chinese robots are already working on things like making sandwiches and folding T-shirts — more delicate tasks than simply pressing buttons in factories.
In the West, “it’s pretty clear that culturally, the US is ready,” says Børnich. However, he says he “wouldn’t be surprised if Japan is soon to follow — they are incredibly excited for the robots to come,” he suggests.
Böhmer points out the US’s “strength in foundational technologies such as AI, machine learning and advanced software development”. He believes companies from the States will advance tech particularly in autonomous systems and human-robot interactions.
But it’s not all bad for Europe. Böhmer believes there’s “significant potential for robotic deployment in European industrial companies due to their strong manufacturing base.”
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/what-robotics-look-like-10-years/
