This is exactly why I didn't want to work for Agile when I was invited. This stuff is going to get crushed in the market by cheap AGVs and good systems integration.

It was very sad to watch the ambitions of excited robotics researchers turn towards making what are essentially digital slaves. I am not saying that manufacturing or logistics couldn't, or even shouldn't be automated. But the true factories and distribution centers of the future will have to fundamentally rethink what productivity and coordinated work looks like, including having a greater imagination about work and employment.

Mimicking the human form inelegantly is not going to cut it, let alone reduce labor costs. I am all for the research, but the dream of replacing bin pickers with humanoid robots is cynical and hopeless.