iRobot Founder Warns Against Close Contact With Walking Humanoids and Predicts a Shift in Robot Design

Key Points

• Brooks experienced a fall incident with an Agility Robotics Digit humanoid and now keeps a three‑meter distance from walking robots.
• Current walking mechanisms make safety certification for shared human‑robot zones virtually impossible under existing standards.
• Brooks predicts that within 15 years “humanoids” will feature wheels, varied arm counts, and unconventional sensor placements.
• He warns that billions spent on vision‑only, rigid humanoids may be misdirected.
• Academic work like MIT’s tactile glove shows promise but still lacks full human‑like touch sensing.