TECH MEET YOUR NEW COWORKER, THE HUMANOID

INSIDE MANY AMAZON warehouses are workers known as "water spiders," who pick up and move the numerous plastic storage bins used to shuttle goods around the facility, and who restock worker stations with merchandise, boxes, and other material. At a warehouse in Sumner, Wash., recently, a special crew of workers stepped in to help the people moving the plastic bins-humanoid robots.

- JASON DEL REY

The droids, made by Agility Robotics, are about the size of a person and can walk around the warehouse floor as well as squeeze into tight spaces thanks to their backward knees. Amazon, which has invested in the startup through its Industrial Innovation Fund, is testing a handful of Digits (as the Agility robots are called), observing how well the droids communicate with its other warehouse systems, as well as how the company's human workers feel about their robotic colleagues.

For most of modern history, robots that looked like us and walked like us have largely been relegated to movie and TV screens, while the robots in factories and other real-world settings have taken the less-sexy form of mechanical arms or oversize Roombas. That's starting to change as a new crop of startups make humanoid robots a reality and promise corporate managers increased productivity and a solution to labor shortages. At a time when generative AI is already raising worries about job loss, however, the rise of the humanoids is likely to bring further urgency to public concerns about automation and employment.

The new machines look like something straight out of science fiction. Figure, a Sunnyvale, Calif., startup backed by OpenAI, recently unveiled its 02 model, a sleek matte-gray-and-black robot with six cameras for eyes and onboard AI to help it see and interact with humans. Carmaker BMW has tested a Figure robot at a South Carolina facility. Tesla CEO Musk, meanwhile, predicts his company's Optimus robots will be in production for internal use by the end of 2025, and the following year for other companies.