Robotics Pioneer Rodney Brooks Warns: The Humanoid Robot Boom Is Destined to Burst

This year, the global humanoid robot market has seen an extraordinary surge, with billions invested and related stocks soaring worldwide. But beneath the excitement, some experts urge caution.

Renowned roboticist, computer scientist, and MIT veteran Rodney Brooks—also the co-founder of iRobot—has issued a stark warning: the humanoid robot bubble is bound to burst. Speaking directly to investors, he cautioned: “You’re wasting your money.”

Brooks is particularly skeptical of companies like Tesla and Figure, which rely on teaching robots by showing them videos of humans performing tasks. He described this approach as “pure fantasy thinking.”

Key issues he highlighted include:

1. Lack of tactile sophistication – The human hand has about 17,000 tactile receptors, a complexity robots cannot match.
2. Safety risks – Full-size humanoids require massive energy to stay upright, and falls could be highly dangerous.
3. Data limitations – Breakthroughs in speech and vision AI were built on decades of data collection; no such foundation exists for touch.

Looking ahead, Brooks predicts that within 15 years, the most successful “humanoid-like” robots will abandon the human form, instead using wheels, multiple arms, and specialized sensors to maximize efficiency.

He concluded that today’s multibillion-dollar investments in costly training experiments are a waste, as they will never scale to mass production.