Multi-billion dollar startup is working on robots that might eventually do human jobs
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What is Aptronic and why is it building humanoid robots for human jobs?
Time for our daily tech and business report. Today we're joined by Joshua Brewstein, Bloomberg News Reporter, a five billion dollar startup is putting robots to work in places where people usually work. Joshua, thanks for the time.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Okay, so we're talking about Aptronic, right? What's special about this company, this startup, and what's special about this robot?
So Aptronic is a startup that's been around for about a decade building humanoid robots. So robots that look like humans, which allows them to operate in spaces that humans would operate. And um they have built a facility at their headquarters in Texas. where these robots are able to basically carry out human like tasks, things you might do in a warehouse all day, with the in with the objective of learning how they would be able to do that.
How are the robots being trained to perform warehouse‑like tasks?
So basically they don't lift boxes that anyone needs lifted. What they do is lift boxes so that the next generation of robots will be able to do it in a real place, in a Walmart or wherever.
I I was imagining like distribution centers, th you know, places where people are rip doing repeated uh actions and and you know, could get bored.
Yeah, exactly. The things I saw when I visited this facility were robots either picking up toys or other objects from a shelf and packing them up in bins or picking up simulated products and putting them on simulated conveyor belts. It was kind of an odd scene.
So you went to go visit them. Was there anything that made you go, wow? So it's really interesting.
I think with like with a lot of these robots, it's really hard not to see a group of robots shaped like humans doing things that you would see humans do and not feel a little chill go down your spine.
Why does Aptronic use people in sensor suits and VR headsets to control the robots?
Um and then also when you look a little bit more closely, you realize Maybe this is a little bit further away than I first thought. Um the robots, while you see them operating on their own, if you kind of step back and look a little bit further, they're actually being controlled by people wearing suits with sensors and uh virtual reality headsets on. So the robots are are basically the you know, physical uh manifestation of someone just off camera doing something. And you know, the the company's not trying to hide this. This is is just kind of how you train a robot to eventually be able to do these things.
Yeah, at first it sounds a little sci fi and then you go, Oh, there's Thoth human.
Yeah, exactly.
Was that a bit of a relief for you?
Which major partners (Google, Mercedes‑Benz) are backing Aptronic and what pilot programs are under way?
Uh yeah, I mean as a human I like to think that, you know, there's gonna be things that we will be able to continue doing for a long time. Um I do think I I spoke with the CEO of Apptronic, a guy named Jeff Cardenas, and what he said was, look, uh as you said, these jobs are boring, sometimes they're dangerous, and I think that we should be striving to have uh robots take over the things that people don't really want to do.
Is Eptronic on the cutting edge?
Uh yeah, I think it is one of the companies that is doing um that is doing interesting work in this space. Uh it has a partnership with Google, who is an investor. Google is using Aptronix hardware to help design um AI models that will be specifically um focused on building robotics. Uh another investor is Mercedes Benz and it is actually running some pilot programs. programs where electronics humanoids are in Mercedes facilities doing the sorts of things that I saw at electronics at a electronics facility, but on an actual production floor.
So the robots y th they can't there's no human error, quote unquote, that can be assigned to them except for unless it's the person who's controlling it.
Yes, and the in the thing I saw, if a robot messed up it would be because their controller messed up and actually I did talk to um the people who were running the facility about this.
When might these robots operate fully autonomously without human controllers?
It's really tiring to do this, um, to train a robot in this way. And so people only do it for a certain amount of time and then they swap them out. Um Aptronic also does operate some robots that work without someone remote controlling them.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is Aptronic and why is it building humanoid robots for human jobs?
0:00–0:54
2
How are the robots being trained to perform warehouse‑like tasks?
0:54–1:44
3
Why does Aptronic use people in sensor suits and VR headsets to control the robots?
1:44–2:24
4
Which major partners (Google, Mercedes‑Benz) are backing Aptronic and what pilot programs are under way?
2:24–3:47
5
When might these robots operate fully autonomously without human controllers?
3:47–4:29
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from KCBS Bloomberg Tech and Business Report
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