You could easily walk the entire Automate floor without spotting a single humanoid. There was a grand total of three, by my count — or, rather, three units of the same nonworking prototype. Neura was showing off its long-promised 4NE-1 robot, amid more traditional form factors. There was a little photo setup where you could snap a selfie with the bot, and that was about it. Notably absent at the annual Association for Advancing Automation (A3) show was an Agility booth. The Oregon company made a big showing at last year’s event, with a small army of Digits moving bins from a tote wall to a conveyer belt a few feet away. It wasn’t a complex demo, but the mere sight of those bipedal robots working in tandem was still a showstopper. Agility chief product officer Melonee Wise told me that the company had opted to sit this one out, as it currently has all the orders it can manage. And that’s really what these trade shows are about: manufacturers and logistics companies shopping around for the next technological leg up to remain competitive. How large a role humanoids will play in that ecosystem is, perhaps, the biggest question on everyone’s mind at the moment. Amid the biggest robotics hype cycle I’ve witnessed firsthand, many are left scratching their heads. After all, the notion of a “general purpose” humanoid robot flies in the face of decades’ worth of orthodoxy. The notion of the everything robot has been a fixture of science fiction for the better part of a century, but the reality has been one of single-purpose systems designed to do one job well.

Full feature : Executives from Boston Dynamics, Agility, Neura and Apptronik discuss robotics and the future of the industry.