Figure AI Robot's White House CONTROVERSY Just One of Several MAJOR Humanoid Developments

The future of AI is personified. It will be formed in the shape of humans. Very soon, artificial intelligence will move from our mobile phones to humanoids that deliver utility. Our environment is designed for people, are uniquely suited to navigate and operate within our world. Silicon Valley's most-watched humanoid robot just paid an historic visit to the White House. The autonomous machine, developed by the $39 billion startup figure, walked with first lady Melania Trump into a gathering of global elites. It was a display designed to show the US's strength in innovation amid an intense technological arms race with China. And it was just one of several new blockbuster developments from America's tech giants that are vying to shape the future of work and daily living. The first lady wasn't kidding when she said, The robots are here. Our future is no longer science fiction. Figure's third-generation humanoid robot, the Figure 3, was a special guest on the second day of the Fostering the Future Together Global Coalition Summit. The office of first lady Melania Trump organized the event focused on broadening access to education and safe technology use for children. The gathering included representatives from 45 countries as well as 28 tech organizations. Figure's flagship humanoid robot walked into the summit with the first lady and delivered quick pre-programmed remarks with a voice that might catch you off guard. Thank you, first lady Melania Trump, for inviting me to the White House. It is an honor to be at Fostering the Future Together's Global Coalition inaugural meeting. I'm Figure 3, a humanoid built in the United States of America. I am grateful to be part of this historic movement to empower children with technology and education. The humanoid welcomed attendees in every language before walking off as Mrs. Trump and first lady of France, Brigitte Macron, looked on. First lady Trump went on to make a controversial proposal about making robots central to education. Imagine a humanoid educator named Plato. Access to the classical studies is now instantaneous. Literature, science, art, philosophy, mathematics, and history. Humanity's entire corpus of information is available in the comfort of your home. On social media, Figure founder Brett Adcock called the moment surreal and said he was proud to be part of history. Robots have visited the White House before, but the Figure 3 is the first to do so as an active participant in a formal event. Standing about 170 centimeters or five feet seven inches, the general purpose humanoid is designed for applications across sectors. Launched in 2022, Figure initially focused on industrial use cases as it deployed a fleet of its humanoids at the BMW plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The startup has become increasingly fixated on household use cases since it launched its third generation humanoid last fall. Figure's founder has said he's gotten inquiries from Pentagon officials about developing a robot soldier, but he's not interested in lethal applications. However, his brother Colby is developing a foundational model to power military robots through his startup called Scout AI. The Figure 3 runs on the startup's self-developed Helix Vision Language Action Model that interprets scenes and translates natural language into physical actions. But in the White House setting, it was almost certainly operating with a human in the loop for safety. A day before the appearance, Figure's billionaire founder announced the launch of his new artificial intelligence lab called Hark. The startup, reportedly seated with $100 million of Adcox's own money, is joining the race to build whatever replaces the smartphone. Like, we're tied to technology today. We're like complete cyborgs, you know? Tied to our devices. I can't even live without mine. Can't leave the house. I wanna just free myself from all that. Figure is seen as one of the most formidable rivals to Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot, which Elon Musk has predicted will be the company's biggest product ever. The EV maker just shared fresh footage of its flagship humanoid and the team developing it in a recruitment video. Tesla is expected to unveil the highly anticipated third-generation iteration of Optimus imminently, and to begin production as early as this summer. The manufacturer plans to scale toward mass production in the following year, aiming to eventually hit millions of units annually. Tesla is also hyping up Optimus as a key driver behind TeraFab, the ambitious chip manufacturing initiative it's backing with SpaceX and XAI. They're planning to spend up to $25 billion on a sprawling semiconductor plant in Austin that brings every step of the fabrication process under one roof. Another U.S. tech giant, Amazon, just acquired the New York startup Fana Robotics, maker of the humanoid robot Sprout. The deal was finalized just two months after Fana emerged from stealth with its cute compact humanoid. Amazon could position Sprout as an alternative to the Chinese company Unitrix G1, which has become the default humanoid research and development platform thanks to its relatively low entry price. Standing 107 centimeters, or about three and a half feet, Sprout weighs just under 23 kilos, or 50 pounds, and boasts 29 degrees of freedom. The bipedal robot's artificial intelligence runs on an embedded NVIDIA Jetson Orin computer. Sprout has a soft padded exterior and compliant motors to operate safely around people. It runs for about three and a half hours on its swappable battery. The robot comes with simple gripper hands for manipulating light objects, but the design is modular so the end effectors can be upgraded. Sprout is priced starting around $50,000, but Fana has said the cost will go down as production scales. Amazon's Frontier Research Lab, known as Amazon FAR, could also use the humanoid to test next-gen applications. The team has been using Unitrix robots to build a general-purpose foundation model to power humanoids for home deliveries. In the longer term, Sprout could evolve into a consumer-facing product that pairs with Amazon's Alexa. News of the acquisition came a week after Amazon acquired the Swiss robodog Maker River to automate van-to-doorstep deliveries. Financial terms of both deals were not disclosed. Meanwhile, the most established player in the U.S. humanoid robotics scene, Boston Dynamics, is apparently gearing up to participate in the upcoming FIFA World Cup. The Massachusetts robotics leader's parent company, Hyundai, shared this teaser, featuring its world-famous Atlas humanoid. As the robotics firm moves toward mass production, its leadership is sounding alarms A company executive recently testified for Congress about what he described as a major national security risk. For more on that, check the related video.