Covering Disruptive Technology Powering Business in The Digital Age

Written by: Sarwan Rahu, Journalist, AOPG.

Do our childhood fantasies of working or even clashing with human-like machines have any rationale meaning in the real world? Will our fears about the human labour force being replaced with humanoid robots ever turn into reality? Is there any possibility of future warfare being fought with humanoid soldiers?

Considering the ever-increasing digital transformation and rapid advancements in technologies these days, the answer to the questions above can be: Yes, we certainly cannot overlook those possibilities. After Petman, Atlas, Sophia, and now Xiaomi’s CyberOne and Tesla’s much-awaited Optimus have become the talk of the town. And yes, the race to create increasingly intelligent, useful (and human-like) robots is certainly heating up.

With Elon Musk signalling to unveil the functional prototype of Optimus in the last week of September, Xiaomi’s CEO, Lei June, is already in action. During a live event held recently in China, we got our first glimpse of CyberOne as he walked, talked, showed his Kung Fu skills and offered a rose flower to its boss.

CyberOne shares a stark resemblance with Optimus, with a noticeable difference being the size as the former seems bulkier. Incorporated with a human emotion detection mechanism, both the machines share nearly the same height, over 5.5 feet and an LED screen rather than a face – though Optimus is believed to have an edge in terms of speed as its top speed stands at 5 mph, twice that of CyberOne which can accelerate up to 2.2 mph.

While Xiaomi apparently does not plan to extend its robot’s functionalities beyond human butler, Tesla’s CEO, however, is determined to shape Tesla bots to have unique personalities and be human companions. In a press release, Xiaomi said, “CyberOne will give birth to more application scenarios in other fields,” signalling that the humanoid will be more of a marketing tool than a major product.

On the other hand, Musk seemingly wants humanoids to adopt human qualities and be our helping hands. “Tesla Bots are initially positioned to replace people in repetitive, boring, and dangerous tasks. But the vision is for them to serve millions of households, such as cooking, mowing lawns, and caring for the elderly,” Musk said in a post.

Optimus will be able to carry around 20 kg and lift up to 68 kg in weight. As we’re getting ever closer to the promise of self-driving cars, Musk is hoping to extend the advancing AI technology to humanoid bots, which will have much broader applications.

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