James Vincent

If a robot gets something wrong when it is cleaning away your plates and dishes, if it breaks one in every 10 cups, are you going to be happy with that sort of that quality?

No, I don't think so.

Is the way China's developing these machines different than the way we are?

Is the US going for the more practical application and is China going for maybe the more industrial?

I would say that the main difference is that China's doing it faster and better.

I think there is more of a focus in the US on home products as a sort of marketing to the rich and saying, look, we're going to take care of all these chores for you.

In China, you have what is one of the fastest aging populations in the world.

I think it's going to be over 60s are going to be predicted to be 30% of the population by 2040.

So you have a loss of manufacturing labor and you have an increased burden on social care.

And I think for Chinese state planners, humanoid robotics could very much plug in both of those gaps at the same time.

So there is a slightly different focus, but it is one that is sort of organic in terms of emerging from the advantages of the Chinese economy.

So the big thing that the Chinese economy has, the US doesn't, is scale.

It has a massive ability to manufacture these units.

It can make thousands at a time.

This is why China is pulling ahead.

I feel like you spent a lot of time in your piece trying to suss out the hype versus the reality.

Where do you land?

Is this going to be our reality within what, a few years?

Or is this still like, you know, flying cars or something of that sort?

I think it's nearer to flying cars than it is to, say, the chatbot side of things, where we've seen really rapid advances.