Robots pour cocktails and run marathons, but still can’t multitask
AFP
June 18, 2026
A humanoid robot that can do a bit of everything is still years off – Copyright AFP JULIEN DE ROSA
They can mix cocktails, run marathons and fold laundry. But humanoid robots are still a long way from doing lots of different jobs on command, whatever the marketing says.
The gap was easy to spot at the Robotics Summit in Boston in late May. The glossy brochures promised one thing. The people who actually build the machines said another.
Elon Musk loves to show off his Optimus prototype, recently filmed jogging in short strides. Figure 03, a third-generation robot developed by Figure AI, can tidy and clean a living room by itself.
China’s AgiBot and Matrix Robotics say their robots can greet visitors, serve coffee and give them a tour, a little like C-3PO from “Star Wars.”
The reality is more modest.
“Most of the humanoids you see are being teleoperated, or they’ve got very specific paths and chores that they do,” said Chris Matthieu of startup RealSense, which makes cameras for robots.
In other words, many are either run by a human with a remote control or stuck doing one narrow task.
Take Neo, the robot that 1X launched with great fanfare last October. It was billed as “the world’s first consumer-ready humanoid robot designed to transform life at home” — but was actually steered by a person off to the side.
Progress is real, though, and artificial intelligence is driving it. “I think AI has extremely accelerated that growth,” said William Okazaki of sensor maker Renesas.
One big hurdle is the hands. Long the holy grail of robotics, they are getting close: robots can now grip with a delicate touch, and some sensors can even tell when they are touching human skin.
Much of this comes from a new kind of AI known as a VLA model, short for vision-language-action. It blends written instructions with what a camera sees in real time, so the robot can link what it is looking at to what it should do.
There is also the “world model” — an AI that learns from vast amounts of images and video until it can predict what will happen next in the real world, such as how an object will shift when it is squeezed.
— Hunt for data —
But an android that can do a bit of everything is still years off.
“For general purpose robots, it will take longer,” said Daniel Fan of Innodisk, which makes parts for robots.
Plenty of humanoids are already out in the world — Boston Dynamics’ Atlas at Hyundai, Hexagon Robotics’ AEON at a BMW site — but these are trials, not final products.
“Until you actually get the robot actually trying to do the thing you think it can do, you don’t really know,” said Charlie Kemp of Hello Robot, which sells robots for people with limited mobility.
Running fully on their own, at scale, is not yet possible, “because there is not enough data,” said Xinrui Bi of AgiBot.
To gather it, companies are setting up cameras everywhere to record human movement — from people cooking at home to workers in a textile workshop in India.
The stakes are higher than for a chatbot like ChatGPT. A robot acts in the physical world, so its mistakes can hurt someone.
“If you want to move into a more social domain, it really has to be safe for the users around the robot,” said Valentino Fagard of Japan’s XELA Robotics, which works on giving robots a sense of touch.
Engineers can set limits — telling the machines not to grip too hard, or not to get too close to a person. But there is a catch. Like chatbots, these AI systems don’t always behave the same way twice, which makes them hard to predict.
“The issue with, call it the world model, or the end-to-end VLA, is they’re non-deterministic, they’re a black box,” said John Black of Brain Corp, whose robots stick to a very specific task, like cleaning floors or checking store shelves.
“They’re nowhere close to reaching the safety levels required,” he said, because even the people who build these systems can not fully see why they do what they do.
They can mix cocktails, run marathons and fold laundry. But humanoid robots are still a long way from doing lots of different jobs on command, whatever the marketing says.
The gap was easy to spot at the Robotics Summit in Boston in late May. The glossy brochures promised one thing. The people who actually build the machines said another.
Elon Musk loves to show off his Optimus prototype, recently filmed jogging in short strides. Figure 03, a third-generation robot developed by Figure AI, can tidy and clean a living room by itself.
China’s AgiBot and Matrix Robotics say their robots can greet visitors, serve coffee and give them a tour, a little like C-3PO from “Star Wars.”
The reality is more modest.
“Most of the humanoids you see are being teleoperated, or they’ve got very specific paths and chores that they do,” said Chris Matthieu of startup RealSense, which makes cameras for robots.
In other words, many are either run by a human with a remote control or stuck doing one narrow task.
Take Neo, the robot that 1X launched with great fanfare last October. It was billed as “the world’s first consumer-ready humanoid robot designed to transform life at home” — but was actually steered by a person off to the side.
Progress is real, though, and artificial intelligence is driving it. “I think AI has extremely accelerated that growth,” said William Okazaki of sensor maker Renesas.
One big hurdle is the hands. Long the holy grail of robotics, they are getting close: robots can now grip with a delicate touch, and some sensors can even tell when they are touching human skin.
Much of this comes from a new kind of AI known as a VLA model, short for vision-language-action. It blends written instructions with what a camera sees in real time, so the robot can link what it is looking at to what it should do.
There is also the “world model” — an AI that learns from vast amounts of images and video until it can predict what will happen next in the real world, such as how an object will shift when it is squeezed.
— Hunt for data —
But an android that can do a bit of everything is still years off.
“For general purpose robots, it will take longer,” said Daniel Fan of Innodisk, which makes parts for robots.
Plenty of humanoids are already out in the world — Boston Dynamics’ Atlas at Hyundai, Hexagon Robotics’ AEON at a BMW site — but these are trials, not final products.
“Until you actually get the robot actually trying to do the thing you think it can do, you don’t really know,” said Charlie Kemp of Hello Robot, which sells robots for people with limited mobility.
Running fully on their own, at scale, is not yet possible, “because there is not enough data,” said Xinrui Bi of AgiBot.
To gather it, companies are setting up cameras everywhere to record human movement — from people cooking at home to workers in a textile workshop in India.
The stakes are higher than for a chatbot like ChatGPT. A robot acts in the physical world, so its mistakes can hurt someone.
“If you want to move into a more social domain, it really has to be safe for the users around the robot,” said Valentino Fagard of Japan’s XELA Robotics, which works on giving robots a sense of touch.
Engineers can set limits — telling the machines not to grip too hard, or not to get too close to a person. But there is a catch. Like chatbots, these AI systems don’t always behave the same way twice, which makes them hard to predict.
“The issue with, call it the world model, or the end-to-end VLA, is they’re non-deterministic, they’re a black box,” said John Black of Brain Corp, whose robots stick to a very specific task, like cleaning floors or checking store shelves.
“They’re nowhere close to reaching the safety levels required,” he said, because even the people who build these systems can not fully see why they do what they do.
AFP
June 19, 2026
Humanoid robot Alter-Ego is designed to perform basic tasks to free up healthcare workers – Copyright AFP MARCO BERTORELLO
A robot with expressive eyebrows that is designed to perform basic tasks to free up healthcare workers is being given a trial run by a hospital in Milan.
Named “Alter-Ego”, the 1.2-metre tall robot can stand in for a doctor working remotely, bring a patient a bottle of water or guide them to treatment.
Daniel Senna, a 31-year-old patient at the Maugeri Hospital, transmits his pain level on a screen attached to the robot’s chest.
“Hi Dani. How are you? Do you need anything?” Ego asks wheelchair-bound Senna, as the data collected is sent instantly to the ward’s nurses.
The robot has been undergoing testing since April in a department which treats people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disease.
“At first, we were afraid the patient might have a negative reaction,” Christian Lunetta, director of the hospital’s neuromotor rehabilitation department, told AFP.
But they soon were “very satisfied, because the robot was designed to spark curiosity and its movements, or at least its functions, suggest a wide range of potential uses”.
The project is a collaboration between the Italian Institute of Technology and the University of Pisa in northern Italy and is currently being remotely controlled by an operator.
From July, the robot will work autonomously.
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has significantly accelerated progress in robotics but robots still need a great deal of training to operate independently.
The aim with the Milan experiment is to work with patients and caregivers to better understand the limits of what a robot can or should do in a hospital ward, said Manuel Catalano from the Italian Institute of Technology.
“Alter-Ego” could also eventually assist patients and their caregivers at home, he said.
Lunetta pointed out that hospitals “have repetitive tasks” which “could be delegated to a good robot”.
“This would also allow us to better value human beings, giving them the time to focus on the human relationship they must maintain with the patient,” he said.
Nurses monitor patients while handing out medicine, picking up signals about physical or mental health.
“Alter-Ego” may seem capable but “no-one has considered directly delegating the administration of pills” to it, neurologist Rachele Piras said.
It can be helpful in other ways though, “as the (neurodegenerative) disease progresses”, she said.
Patients could find it liberating to be able to directly ask the robot for things, while doing so would also reduce the tasks of a caregiver, allowing him or her to “revert to simply being a companion, mother or daughter”.
A robot with expressive eyebrows that is designed to perform basic tasks to free up healthcare workers is being given a trial run by a hospital in Milan.
Named “Alter-Ego”, the 1.2-metre tall robot can stand in for a doctor working remotely, bring a patient a bottle of water or guide them to treatment.
Daniel Senna, a 31-year-old patient at the Maugeri Hospital, transmits his pain level on a screen attached to the robot’s chest.
“Hi Dani. How are you? Do you need anything?” Ego asks wheelchair-bound Senna, as the data collected is sent instantly to the ward’s nurses.
The robot has been undergoing testing since April in a department which treats people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disease.
“At first, we were afraid the patient might have a negative reaction,” Christian Lunetta, director of the hospital’s neuromotor rehabilitation department, told AFP.
But they soon were “very satisfied, because the robot was designed to spark curiosity and its movements, or at least its functions, suggest a wide range of potential uses”.
The project is a collaboration between the Italian Institute of Technology and the University of Pisa in northern Italy and is currently being remotely controlled by an operator.
From July, the robot will work autonomously.
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has significantly accelerated progress in robotics but robots still need a great deal of training to operate independently.
The aim with the Milan experiment is to work with patients and caregivers to better understand the limits of what a robot can or should do in a hospital ward, said Manuel Catalano from the Italian Institute of Technology.
“Alter-Ego” could also eventually assist patients and their caregivers at home, he said.
Lunetta pointed out that hospitals “have repetitive tasks” which “could be delegated to a good robot”.
“This would also allow us to better value human beings, giving them the time to focus on the human relationship they must maintain with the patient,” he said.
Nurses monitor patients while handing out medicine, picking up signals about physical or mental health.
“Alter-Ego” may seem capable but “no-one has considered directly delegating the administration of pills” to it, neurologist Rachele Piras said.
It can be helpful in other ways though, “as the (neurodegenerative) disease progresses”, she said.
Patients could find it liberating to be able to directly ask the robot for things, while doing so would also reduce the tasks of a caregiver, allowing him or her to “revert to simply being a companion, mother or daughter”.
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