How Much Will AI Robots Cost? 

The CEO of Figure said that he expects that they will eventually be able to get the price down to 30-50k within a few years. The next few decades are going to be crazy...

When mass produced will probably cost the same as a family car

This channel is like a breath of fresh air from all the hype and BS in the media. Really dig the nuanced and grounded perspective and I like how you tie it back in to reality and economics of it all.

This is the most calming AI / Robotics video I have seen ever.

Hey man, just ran into your channel. Thanks for putting out great content!

UBI video pre-thoughts: Don't do UBI. Instead, expand employment insurance to include training and roll in a government run temp-worker agency. Everyone, anyone that wants money/training anyway, is in the system. Everyone has an employment status, a list of certified skills, and an employee rating. You work, you earn "training time" that you can take whenever you want and train however you want (or get shoved into if you're laid off). Earn new certifications, go to university, travel, or just sit on the couch watching yt, your choice. You are never unemployed; you are either working or on training. That work to training ratio can be adjusted over time as more and more jobs get automated. Maybe now, it's 12 months work to 1 month training. By the end, maybe that's reversed. That's a pretty easy transition so far, with the benefit that you're not stuck in a job you don't like. Work a few years, then train for something else. It's baked into the system. Next, is to connect the people that have no skills, don't really want to put the effort into new skills, and don't really want to work anyway... with the jobs that nobody really wants to do but still need doing. For this, I propose the "work registry." As an employer, you have a job you need someone to work at and don't want to bother going through the hiring process, so you just go to the work registry and bid on worker skills/ratings the same way people bid on Google Adsense words. Higher the bid, the more the worker gets paid, give right of refusal to the employee as well. The system tells the workers you "win" where they need to show up. If they show up, you pay the Registry like any temp-worker agency. If you like the employee and they like you, you can agree to extend the job term. Otherwise, at the end of how long the work term was, you punch in your rating of the employee and the employee gets to rate you as the employer. If the employee doesn't show up, they get a zero rating and you'll probably bid higher the next time you want a worker. If the employee rates you lower, then the Registry adjusts your next bid so you have to pay more to compete against other employers in the auction. But, here's the UBI part. Even if you don't show up for your assigned job, you still get paid and you still earn your training time. You just get a really poor employee rating and that means you only ever get assigned to the worst paying jobs. There's a floor... effectively social security. But, every day, they keep sending you job assignments and every day you get to decide if you want to start showing up, earning that employee rating, and start earning more. Any day you want, you can start. Most likely, some government make-work job that nobody even cares if it gets done, but a job. Or, maybe we'll start "funding' volunteer agencies with paid workers. No barriers, no effort, just start showing up. Eventually, everything could get rolled into it... social security, disability, retirement, even set it up to make self-employment an easy option. And, as the needed jobs start reducing to zero, the system will seamlessly continue. And yes, I keep re-writing this and posting, refining as I go.

I really like your calm energy and thoughtful content. Subscribed.

Hey Will, this channel is a hidden gem, thanks for the awesome content!

I kept thinking about cost, as well. Loved your thoughts on financing. Certainly got my gears grinding. (Pun intended) I'm sure that more than a few of us here in the comments have now started running the numbers re: various business models...

There will be a subscription/maintenance fee. Maybe $300/month

Great work - look forward to seeing more in the future

It would make more sense for these companies to charge a yearly salary for these robots with a update / upgrade path. More like a lease structure.

As mass manufacturing takes over it cost will trend towards the cost of raw materials + energy + labour + profit margin. I think if Tesla can sell them for $10k that will sell a billion. On the other hand if they are $100k they will sell 10000, if it is a $1mil they will sell 1000.

Well said! I've been of the impression that families will invest in a box that lives at home to do llm inference to keep things private, which might evolve to being the brain for the family to also run the robot custodian. That's only if it's cheap enough to make sense tho. If the jobs are displaced and nobody can afford food, not to mention a house robot then that sucks. I don't think there's a job that's untouchable to AI, but that doesn't mean work will end, it will just force a change from butt-in-seat-to-get-paid office work. Upskilling won't mean years at school anymore, since llm teachers can answer any question at any location. Not sure that there's room for humans to pair program once the Robots are smarter than humans instead of just breaking parity. Seems robots can do it all, so it's more about finding the best way to ride the transition until they suck up everything. The attractor state, good or bad, will be decided during the transition.

Though I'm not sure about the chinese version, I'm fairly certain Spot is made to order, i.e. custom made. The same type of, or more, markup that you get from ordering e.g. custom furniture (around 10x). My guess would be that the chinese copies are made to order as well, and at least they take a hefty margin on them. Cool channel, good voice, looks cleanly edited.

Jeez... when AGI comes to life I'm totally going to want one as a little friend.

I think the leasing model will end up being a more common option, specially while technology and designs aren't stabilized. Nobody would like to invest a hefty sum in robots that become obsolete in a couple of years.

'In The Year 2525' is now playing in my head. Thanks for that.

Great video!

I predict that the Chinese humanoid robots will be super cheap! Compare with Unitree's robot dog Go2 which is pretty advanced and yet at a very low cost. Also I expect many robots to be wirelessly connected to computer clouds doing the heavy AI lifting.

Nice, found a new RU-vid gem.

the F01 bot runs an onboard framework that converts text from GPT-4 API to robotic actions. It is important to specify this when considering cost and deployability: the GPT-4 API costs money per query, and the connection requires lightning fast high fidelity internet to maintain that 3-6 second delay on action throughput. It is massively impressive as a chassis and the underlying models will only get better and cheaper over time. I don't think the current GPT-4 cloud infrastructure can handle deployment of this at scale.

Great video and the economics is crucial.

I think they need to cost around $10,000 USD for them to be adopted by consumers (middle-class).

So far I like your content. Isn't it more economical to just develop task specific robots . I have worked in factories and wearhouses. And many tasks only use a small percentage of human motion. If you use robots and mass produced parts to build and AI to help design the robots. The cost is dramatically lower per robot.

Curious what you think about Devin from cognition ai

The production of one bipedal humanoid robot, similar to the Optimus/Figure type, on a mass scale would incur material costs equivalent to one average car. This translates to approximately 30 to 33 robots. When upgrades and services are factored in, consider the financial implications if a small production line were to manufacture 1,000,000 units annually by the year 2027. This scenario presents a significant opportunity for market leadership, potentially by China. Now you can add your math figures, I say we are talking under $9,000 for basic unit.

I might get one of these robots as a companion. Keep it in my office . It can brush my suit for me and tell me to think positive.

100 odd grand is the past.. Robots will be relatively cheap as chips. Vertically integrated Tesla will produce its Optimus for 10 grand. How much to recoup R&D and whether they sell or lease remains the question. But in a new competitive field, Tesla could hypothetically sell for $20,000 for 100% return. Good luck to the rest, The market will be big enough for niche uses, leaving plenty of opportunity for everyone.. but not at the margins you think.

People blindly state that whenever there is disruptive innovation, new jobs emerge and this will be the case with AI and robotics. However, there’s never been technologies created to replicate all human tasks and think autonomously without human direction, so where will the jobs come from other than a few supervisors of the tech and those with capital/business owners and directors

currently there is no competition and no high volume production in robotics, that is why the prices are high. I'd suggest you to compare robots production cost with electric car production cost. I do not see how robots could be more expensive than electric cars when produced in big volumes. so, I think after production picks up, there will be a range of robot models with range of prices from $50K to $200K in about 2-3 years, going down to as low as $10K for cost optimized robots, produced by other robots - in 5 years.

Very thoughtful. I do remember being pretty sure that most trucker jobs would go away with autonomous driving. It's been ten years and that still hasn't happened.

All I care about is when the Butler version comes out. All this common sense and economic realities thing is all fine and dandy but that doest do my laundry.

The Optimus robot being developed at Tesla has been costed by an industry expert at about $10,000 cost or less. Elon has said he expects the robot to be sold for $20-$25 thousand. Exactly what the software will cost isn’t know but the marginal cost of software is zero so, in large enough quantities, the software cost might be fairly low ($2-$3 per hour). If the robot lasts about 10,000 hours (2000 hours per year for 5 years), the cost would be about $2 per hour. Even at $5 per hour, the robot would be a no brainer for business so long as software exists that can do the job. Even if the government added a $5 per hour tax to help pay for UBI, at $10 per hour cost, it is still a no brainer for any business that can get software that works.

I think we should not only consider humanoid robots. Specialized robots are taking people jobs in manufacturing for years like in automobile manufacturing. The current trend is using robots in kitchen at fast food restaurants. Once all mechanical are in place all you have to do is change the programming to add AI.

I wonder if the robot can be smart enough to go through a computer with you, look at files, browse the internet and help you scale a current business and then can also work on your laptop 24/7

How much would it cost to charge them and how much electricity they consume? Would we face battery shortage if we start producing lots of these robots?

Impressed by the quality of your reasoning. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. And regarding your potential next topic about UBI I just wanted say that in my opinion a job guarantee as suggested by the MMT community is a far better and more realistic solution than UBI. Social jobs or jobs in the healthcare sector which we may still not want to be executed by robots could be guaranteed by the government for those who struggle to find a job. Maybe you find the time to do some research about this topic as well and share your thoughts together with your thoughts about UBI. Thank you

JAH BLESS, I am a self thaught programmer working at a startup without a degree and I am pivoting to robotics since tech lead said that software is like titanic xd. We have developed heavy ai but the real world applications depends on physical emobdidment of ai

fresh graduate from germany. the situation is grave for robotics software engineer if you are looking for entry level jobs. God!

Robot bartender selling now is $250,000. Would replace at least 6 coffee house baristas (more if your hours go later or 24 hrs). So that would pay for itself in about 2 years easily.

Awesome its hard to find rational people on RU-vid this guys good

Based on the parts I'd guess $40,000 would be realistic in the next two years, but supply will need to catch up to demand before the price drops down to there. The idea that they will displace workers as free labor is not realistic. Governments are going to start looking for a way to tax robot labor as soon as there's enough of it to tax. I would expect that they will tax robot labor enough to implement UBI so they can pacify the unemployed masses. The mentally challenging jobs will be safest in the long run since processing and power usage will slow the replacement of those jobs.

What I'm interested in is home helper/companion models. What would an average consumer be able/willing to pay? (I grew up with The Jetsons. I want my flying car too!)

The potential for robotics is amazing, but in terms of job losses, AI alone (without robotics) will replace a lot of white-collar jobs. As for blue collar jobs, I suspect that we'll see a lot niche "smart machines" replacing jobs before humanoid robots. e.g. self-driving tractors.

I like this channel.

AI Explained, another yputube channel, is reporting that Figure 1 will sell for $50K-$150K. That's a wide margin, and I have no idea how it could be that inexpensive, but that's the price point they said the company would be selling it.

On an institutional level It'd be important to start early gaining some experience in how to provide a substantial base welfare because the US is very much behind on that along with constantly being on the edge of social unrest or even civil war

What about Tesla optimus? I can imagine that will be a lot cheaper to build

Again - Jacque Fresco predicted in the 80s it would eventually be the case with robots and automation, and left us all in 2017 with something much better and robust and holistic than a "band-aid" solution like UBI - Resource Based Economy.

The dog bot is $80k USD. The humainoid bot is $100k. The lithium battery is completely encased within the torso. And in case you didn't know, they wear out after three years. As an inference, the manufacturer(s) are seriously expecting to just provide these machines to just billion-dollar corporations if not just Amazon only. Furthermore, they're are hoping their client(s) to just fling a few millions on a semi-yearly basis. Because, it's a perpetuation of the Ford design-to-fail mantra. Which has now been concreted and instilled across multiple domestic enterprises in North America for many years now. Why do you think the manufacturing sector is entirely owned by China now?

They would have to be like $5000 for the regular middle-class American to afford. Even Message that they would they was thinking that it would cost like $10,000 so I can see that they will be lower as it is the market and everybody starts competing they will be cheaper. On the manufacturing side yes I can see them being more expensive but for their point of view, they’re saving a lot of money by going with robotics insurance sick vacation time

Not so much how much they cost it's how much it cost to maintain and keep the things running it will be too expensive

In the future everyone will own a robot it will be like needing a car

You have to take into account that consumer goods are going to get ridiculously cheap too.

Elon is on record as saying if they can get the encomies of scale right they will offer Optimus for 10K

I am going to bring Gary vee with me to a garage sale and get one for pennies on the dollar

These numbers will never work out here in Africa where you get a housemaid at $20 a month. Even at professional level, you get a college-educated able-bodied person at $300 a month. Try get a robot beat that price, I dare you!

there will be many options for less than 500k

Everything..

Actual adult unemployment in the US is around 23%. It's fairly remarkable how statistics can be manipulated to paint a more rosy picture.

You are definitely not a financial person. Your hypothetical numbers were really super wrong even hypothetically, it's way off. But the content is interesting and the numbers economic impact as these robots get more capable will be daunting. Thank you for your hard work in putting this out.

Figure & Nvidia might sell it as low as $2K to gain market share!😊 Tesla said $20K! Kelper maybe $10K. Boston Scientific still in the $100K+😂

when will they be able to tell us when i can give a robot a hug.

Consider becoming a robot repair technician!

There’s going to be some sort of tax related to sending people out of work. Don’t be surprised.

Easy answer. $18k. Humanoid capabilities can be build for under $6k and triple it for dev and gpu costs. Source I am an AI for robotics founder. Disclaimer: I am biased.

Thanks for the analysis. Contact your Congress person tell them no on tax breaks for intelligent machinery. Tell them you will vote them out of office and replace them with a Figure One robot that can craft meaningful legislation. The newly elected Congressional robots won't sleep they'll be available 24/7 to be responsive to constituent needs. They won't need lobbies either. I'm so happy your analysis appeared. I've been contemplating how to stop labor from becoming horse's.

I'm expecting these robots to cost about the same as a car once they're mass produced, say about $30K - $50K per unit.

UBI

Tony Seba predicts humanoid robots will start at a cost of 10 usd per hour of work and then a fasr decline to 1 dollar per hour and by 2035 10 cents per hour. Billions will be deployed around the world

Too expensive for people to use they are not quite there on being able to do anything really useful

The Price is Right 2045 will be crazy.

I just want to know the easiest way to take one out. I doubt they put the brain in the head, would be too easy to behead during an emergency situation.

I told my child that he was lucky because he will soon be able to move me in to the auto nursing home where 99 percent of the care is provided by the mechanized building with one or two humans on staff for insurance purposes. Allowing him to spend his life in the meta-verse, with a personal mech-butler at his beck and call.

Separate to these, Elon estimates his tesla bots will come in somewhere not much above 20k. Technology should be getting cheaper with innovation

lol, no way for home use or small busness

AI explained says the Figure01 robot is up to $150k.

A humanoid robot capable of human tools to make copies of itself from raw materials to final assembly and programming has a marginal cost of zero. At that point you’re not dealing with a new technology, you’re looking at a new species.

I work so that I can buy the stuff I made. If I don’t work I don’t buy and the place where I once worked doesn’t need robots to make stuff because there’s no one to buy it. 🤔

Hey! ❤ RU-vid recommended one of your videos, and I must say, you post awesome stuff. I love it, and I want to see you on top! By the way, I was wondering if you or your friend need a video editor or thumbnail designer. I am Mohan, a professional video editor and thumbnail designer with 4.5 years of experience in creating engaging and high-quality videos and thumbnails for RU-vid. If not, please reply with "NO" and I will remove you from my follow-up list. Keep creating amazing content! Best regards, Mohan

4:50 Actually, first thing I think of is CO2 emissions.. We’re blowing it, and AI hasn’t been helping

Yeah, what is the tipping point at which the economy breaks because of the layoffs? Ideally, we could eliminate the government jobs first. They're all technically paid by other people's tax money, so putting them on unemployment first seems to make sense in that I don't think it hurts the economy much. If we remove ten percent of the people who actually pay taxes? I don't know if this country could handle the strain.

Great, early retirement for everyone! :) The sooner the AI and robots take over all of the jobs - the better. Poverty will be solved. Also 40-80% of people don't like their jobs. We all need a few Optimus and Figure 01 robots per person and it will be the end of human labor forever. Unless you want to work and create something of course. :) This will create a parallel economy fully independent from humans. The transition period - the next 15 years - that might be tough though. Hope we will find a solution as fast as possible. Deflation in prices of goods and services is what we need. From 100.000 to 10.000 to 1.000 to 100 to 10 to 1 to 0,1 to 0,01 and then it's already ridiculous and basically free. Things should be cheaper if humans are not making them. Deflation > UBI

If your robot kills someone who is responsible? What would happen to the robot? Decommissioned? Imprisoned? Barred from recharge for some time?

We should still make companies pay taxes for robots, so we can use that money for common wealth in society and redistribute a part of the gain between humans. Or use that money to refill pension funds for humans

Your whole talk is quite irrelevant compared to Tesla saying their target is below 30.000 USD - case closed. Also, the "brain" of the Optimus is not 6000 USD - it is the same hardware that runs Tesla car Self Driving, any higher AI in the cloud is - in the cloud.

Yes, Robots and AI will likely replace a lot of manual labour now - if so and unemployment rises dramatically - who will be earning enough money to purchase the goods all these robots and AI are making - will they be selling to other robots? Automation via robots and AI only works if it does not destroy your customer base.

For the reference point , Gaza had unemployment of 31% b4 the current war , yea It gets real bad. Thats why all these billionaires making home in private islands

“Several decades” you don’t look 100 years old to me. 🤔 😂

Nope. Unitree

the cost will not be 1 million. it will cost like a car or even less.

Aren't these humanoid robots dumb? Many businesses work like systems, where very specialized parts are what really cut costs. Does having a general purpose machine makes sense for most companies? I really don't think so. EDIT: typo

Looks like dystopia to me

AI does not exist.