The humanoid robots showcased at this week’s Web Summit in Lisbon may look impressive, but according to Amazon’s chief roboticist, they are still far from being capable of replacing real physical tasks in factories and warehouses.

In an interview on Wednesday, Tye Brady said,
“Sometimes it feels like technology is being developed just to show off technology.”

He further explained,
“In robotics, we first look at the problem. Then we define the function, and finally the form is created based on that function. If you start with the form, the entire process goes in the wrong direction.”

Web Summit organiser Paddy Cosgrave had highlighted China’s Unitree breakdancing humanoid robots, claiming that “the era of Western technological dominance is fading.”

Brady, however, pointed to the more than one million robots already in use at Amazon, which simplify various tasks in e-commerce operations—such as picking and sorting items and safely transporting heavy loads from one place to another using wheeled robots that avoid human workers.

According to a September report from the International Federation of Robotics, China alone has around two million industrial robots in operation, while the global count has exceeded 4.5 million.

Amazon also says it has built a strong local ecosystem and supply chain in Massachusetts for the development and manufacturing of its robots.

Brady noted that the world is still “in the early stages of robotics and physical AI.”
He also said that “100 percent automation is not possible.” The purpose of Amazon’s robots, he added, is not to replace humans, but to help them by removing “boring, repetitive, and mundane” tasks so they can focus on more valuable work.