Futurology

Hollywood's love of dystopian sci-fi has a lot to answer for, as it has shaped many people's ideas about the future very negatively. One of the most persistent of those ideas is that robots will only be owned by the 1%, who will use them to subjugate everyone else.

Reality is shaping up to be different. Free, open-source AI is the equal of anything privately controlled. Robotics too looks like it is following a similar trajectory. The Berkeley Humanoid Lite is built with off-the-shelf and 3D-printed components and costs just $5,000.

Contrary to doomerist fantasies, with decentralized renewable energy, and open-source AI & robotics - it seems hard to believe the 1% will own everything in the future.

One of the distortions of AI commentary is that so much of its focus is on Venture Capitalism. Because many people are incentivized to talk about where the big money is flowing, they ignore outside their bubble. Meanwhile, often the really significant things happen elsewhere.

With AI that 'really significant' thing - is that free open-source AI is the global future, far more than the VC darlings like OpenAI. Not that the people pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into the likes of OpenAI are likely to admit that.

There are more signs of this as recently as this week. Yet again, free open-source AI (in this the Qwen3 family from Alibaba) is not only equalling the best of the investor-funded AI, they are bettering it in some metrics.

The VC's thinking is that one of their bets will make big & generate trillions in revenue, but it seems hard to believe when all over the world people can pick up what you're trying to sell for free.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-28/ups-in-talks-with-startup-figure-ai-to-deploy-humanoid-robots

United Parcel Service Inc. is in talks with robotics startup Figure AI Inc. to use humanoid robots for some tasks in the logistics giant’s network, according to people familiar with the matter.

UPS and Figure began having discussions about a partnership last year and have continued talks in recent months, said the people, who asked not be identified as the details are private.

The exact functions that Figure’s humanoids would handle for UPS remain unclear. The startup hinted at a tie-up with a logistics firm in February, posting a 90-second video on X that showed its sleek, 5-foot-6-inch robot standing beside a conveyor belt, picking and sorting small parcels.

A growing number of startups and Big Tech firms are seizing on recent advances in artificial intelligence technology to develop robots that look and move more like people. Figure has emerged as one of the most prominent startups in this group. The company has held talks with investors to raise $1.5 billion at a valuation of $39.5 billion, Bloomberg reported in February. More recently, some have questioned whether Figure may have exaggerated the extent of its work with customer BMW AG.

In a statement, UPS said it wouldn’t discuss “specific or potential vendor partners,” adding that “we regularly explore and deploy a wide range of technologies, including robotics.” A representative for Figure declined to comment.

In recent years, UPS has increased its automation efforts. The company deploys fixed robotic arms and AI-driven software in its high-tech Velocity facilities. UPS also partnered with Dexterity Inc., a startup building industrial robots capable of “human-like” finesse.