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Humanoid robots are no longer sci-fi. Meet sprout by fauna robotics · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

0:09
You're listening to the Hidden Lightness on America Out Loud Talk Radio.
0:12
I'm your host, Jimmy Hinton.
0:14
How do you feel about a humanoid robot?
0:19
Well, that reality's here.
0:22
They're there is a company called Funer Robotics.
0:26
And just this year, they released a capable humanoid robot.
0:34
And they're making it public.
0:38
This is for developers.
0:41
It's for uh other companies to try it out, individuals to try it out, enthusiasts.
0:47
And it's a very stable humanoid robot that stands 3.5 feet tall.
0:54
And I gotta tell you, um, this technology is here.
0:59
Whether we want to admit it or not, the technology's here.
1:04
And it's here to stay, it's not going anywhere.
1:07
People have been talking about this for a very long time.
1:09
I think society as a whole has rejected this notion that robots are gonna be integrated into our society, that they're gonna be as normal as having a laptop.
1:23
Oh, it's true.
1:25
It's gonna be as normal as owning a laptop.
1:31
Well, what's this company up to?
1:33
What are they doing?
1:34
What's it all about?
1:36
Uh, what is this robot for?
1:39
How is it going to be used?
1:41
Well, those are all questions that we don't have the answers to yet.
1:45
In fact, the company CEOs, they don't have the answer.
1:50
The co-founders and CEOs, they don't have an answer.
1:54
And that's why they put it out to the public.
1:58
They did a move, which I think is uh is a really brilliant move.
2:03
They're letting people try it in very different fields to see how it responds, how it acts, uh, how it behaves, and they want to to earn the trust of humans.
2:17
And this company has has worked for years on developing this robot.
2:24
And they got to the point where uh it was incredibly stable, and they designed it so that as these robots learn, and as the developers learn more, and developers uh kind of open source kind of stuff, as developers figure out better ways to utilize these robots, they can just do software updates.
2:48
So instead of rebuilding the robot from the ground up, they'll just send out software updates, which is absolutely brilliant.
2:58
So I want to look at a couple different uh news pieces here.
3:02
One is from the company Fonda Robotics itself, and one is a Fox News article.
3:08
Uh we'll look at the Fox News article first.
3:11
Humanoid robots are getting smaller, safer, and closer.
3:17
For decades, humanoid robots have lived behind safety cages in factories or deep inside research labs.
3:24
Fauna Robotics, a New York-based robotic startup, says that era is ending.
3:31
The company has introduced Sprout.
3:34
That's the name of the little robot.
3:37
A compact humanoid robot designed from the ground up to operate around people.
3:42
Instead of adapting an industrial robot for public spaces, Fauna built Sprout specifically for homes, schools, offices, retail spaces, and entertainment venues.
3:57
The company said Sprout is a humanoid platform designed from first principles to operate around people.
4:04
This is a new category of robot build for the spaces where we live, work, and play.
4:11
And it's exactly right.
4:12
The robots up to this point have been built for factories.
4:16
In fact, Tesla is, I think, on the leading edge of using robotics in its plants, and what that does is it increases productivity and efficiency.
4:31
It eliminates injuries at work.
4:36
You know, if something fails, it's a robot that gets hurt, not a human.
4:43
And uh they're very, very accurate.
4:47
Humans forget things.
4:50
Uh there are a lot of recalls, if you notice on cars, uh, very routinely you get you get recalls for a lot of times it's faulty assembly, where people forget to torque uh certain bolts to the right specifications or what have you.
5:10
It's uh very often human error.
5:14
Well, the robots eliminate that.
5:17
But now we're putting robots into homes, schools, offices, retail spaces, entertainment venues.
5:26
And I gotta tell you where I'm really excited about this.
5:31
Because there are huge demands for uh for just all kinds of help.
5:39
And I'll give you an example.
5:42
Uh I told you that our church, uh, we got involved with volunteering as snow angels, and the snow angels go out and uh they they shovel and snowblow for elderly people who who are shut in, literally shut in.
6:00
And this is really critical because there are um there are critical needs that these people have.
6:08
They have to have medications delivered to the house, uh, therapists, in-home nurses, uh, food delivery, and none of these elderly people could get it because we've been getting a mountain of snow.
6:26
And I I actually had a caseworker contact me, and she she just thanked me and said, you know, I was the caseworker assigned to this woman's house that you guys shoveled.
6:38
And I would not have been able to get there.
6:40
And I'm telling you, the snow is, you know, it's not like it was a couple inches of snow.
6:44
It was feet deep.
6:47
And there were critical services for this elderly woman, and uh, you know, we were able to shovel the sidewalks and and uh you know, actually snowblow, because there was so much snow that you actually couldn't shovel, or at least it would have taken hours and hours.
7:06
So we were able to open up her property, but there was just one the other day, and it's a woman who we had gone to before, and she lives really out in the country, and her house was built in a field on top of a knoll, and the amount of wind that she gets is absolutely just crazy.
7:28
And she's blind, she's elderly, she lives by herself, she has a long driveway, and I knocked on the door and I said, ma'am, we are uh we're here to uh blow your driveway open just so that you, you know, if you hear people out here, that's that's what we're up to.
7:47
And she was very grateful, and she said, Yeah, it might be a little bit of a lost cause because of the wind.
7:54
It's just gonna keep blown shut.
7:57
I said, granted, but you know, we'll we'll check on it every couple of days and we'll try to keep you opened up here.
8:05
Her mailbox was completely buried in snow.
8:08
She could not receive mail.
8:11
Uh her driveway was covered in feet of snow.
8:16
So we got it opened up, and I went back the other day, and sure enough, it was blown completely shut again.
8:24
There was, I would estimate somewhere around three and a half feet of snow all the way across her driveway.
8:29
And again, it's it's a long driveway.
8:32
And so my nephew, my nephew and I uh took about an hour to get it opened up.
8:38
We had a snowblower, and uh it was a lot of work, but we got it opened up, and I knocked on the door and and talked to her for a little while, and she's the sweetest lady, but I said, ma'am, you're you're up here all alone.
8:53
I said, What do you do when your driveway has feet of snow like it just had?
8:59
How do you get food?
9:02
Her answer was I don't.
9:07
I said, how do you get medication?
9:12
Your prescription medication.
9:13
How do you get that?
9:15
Her answer was I don't.
9:19
I said, are you able to get any kind of services up here?
9:25
And she was so so happy and just like such a delightful person, and uh, I mean, an absolute sweetheart.
9:33
She wasn't complaining, and she she just said, No, I can't receive any care while I'm up here.
9:40
And I said, Well, ma'am, not to be morbid, but what happens if you have a medical emergency and you have to you have to have an ambulance?
9:51
And her answer was, and this is heartbreaking.
9:55
Her answer was, well, I guess I'm on my own.
10:00
I mean, it's it's impossible, was impossible before we opened up the driveway.
10:06
It was impossible for paramedic to even to walk up her driveway, you know, with to try to carry her out in three and a half feet of compacted snow.
10:15
It's it's a near impossibility.
10:19
I mean, yeah, maybe they could park on the road, but to walk up her her long driveway in three and a half feet of compacted snow.
10:27
If you've ever tried to do that, it's it's hard enough to walk just on your own.
10:34
But to try to carry somebody on top of three and a half feet of snow that's deep, it's it's thick, it's heavy.
10:43
It's it's it's an impossibility.
10:47
And I was like, uh that's like what do you do for food?
10:52
And she just smiled and she said, Well, I have I have enough kind of stored up.
10:57
I try to store up whenever every time my driveways open, and uh I'm okay for you know a couple weeks at a time.
11:06
And I just thought, you know, here's somebody who lives by herself, who literally has no one, nobody's coming to check on her.
11:16
And I asked her, have have case workers have people have people been coming to check on you.
11:21
And she said, Oh no, they they can't get to me.
11:25
She said, a couple have tried, they but they called me and said that they couldn't, they couldn't even walk up my driveway.
11:32
And she said a lot of the people who are caring for me are are elderly themselves.
11:38
And I just thought, you know, here's a prime example of how an in house robot would be such a huge aid.
11:50
You have a blind woman living by herself, she's elderly.
11:54
She had a walker, she is mobile, but not that mobile.
12:00
And here she's trying, you know, not trying, she is.
12:03
She's cooking on her own.
12:05
She's cleaning on her own, cleaning her house, doing dishes, doing laundry.
12:12
People literally cannot get to her.
12:16
Physically, they cannot get to her.
12:20
Wouldn't that be a perfect scenario?
12:23
Wouldn't that be a great test subject for for the robots to see how they respond, how they how they work.
12:32
I think Sprout would be a prime candidate for a place like that.
12:37
And there are a lot.
12:39
I mean millions of people.
12:42
Her living in that kind of a situation.
12:46
I've visited many, many, many people who are in very vulnerable positions.
12:52
You know, maybe they're not snowed in, but they they don't have home health because there's not availability.
13:00
There's a big shortage in home health care.
13:05
And I know a woman, one of my church members who passed away.
13:09
She lived up on the top floor.
13:12
She was on the on the third floor.
13:16
She was not able to do steps.
13:19
There was no elevator in her apartment complex.
13:23
And just simple tasks.
13:25
She she got to the point where she was so weak because she was battling cancer.
13:30
She couldn't clean her apartment, and she was very neat, very tidy.
13:35
She got to the point where she could not cook.
13:38
She didn't have the strength.
13:42
She didn't have people.
13:43
She was all alone.
13:46
And I thought, what a what a great way to be able to have a robot to cook food for you, to do dishes, to do your laundry.
13:58
Yeah, there are lots and lots of things that you can program these things to do, and it's really incredible.
14:03
I'm gonna read a little bit about this, and I watched a couple videos because I'm just absolutely fascinated with uh with Sprout.
14:12
Sprout is a really cool humanoid robot that walks through the house pretty flawlessly.
14:20
It's able to map its way through a house on its own.
14:25
You don't have to program to program it to do it.
14:27
It just learns, it learns the environment, and it's able to walk around and navigate and learn which room is what.
14:36
And it's really cool.
14:37
And the fact that this is uh has gone public is really really encouraging.
14:42
And I really, really pray that these robots are tested in environments like I'm describing, because I think that's to me, that's the biggest demand.
14:55
And I would love to get my hands on one of these robots.
14:59
In fact, I'm gonna look.
15:00
You can request a robot.
15:02
I'm just clicking around here.
15:04
I want to see.
15:05
No, it doesn't show you.
15:07
It's a form that you fill out.
15:08
Name, address, country, organization.
15:12
What would you do with Sprout?
15:14
And then you submit it.
15:16
I am very, very curious what the cost is.
15:19
Maybe over commercial break here, I'll I'll look it up and see if I can find any information on that.
15:24
But this is the kind of stuff that the very fact that I can request a robot.
15:30
I literally just clicked and I can request a robot.
15:35
Any of us can do that.
15:38
And that's the first time, to my knowledge, the first time ever, that the public has been able to request robots and actually get one and put them to work.
15:50
It's really, really cool.
15:52
And uh, this is a 50-pound robot, it's pretty lightweight.
15:57
Uh, it can fall down.
15:59
They've done tests where it can fall down and and pick itself up without injury.
16:07
It's uh it's really really cool.
16:12
So it's a safety first.
16:14
They they touted as a safety first humanoid robot built specifically for people.
16:21
Again, it's three and a half feet tall.
16:24
It fits naturally into human spaces instead of towering over them.
16:29
If 50 pounds, it carries less kinetic energy during movement or contact, which makes close interaction safer by design.
16:40
It has lightweight materials, soft materials.
16:44
It avoids sharp edges, it has no sharp edges whatsoever.
16:48
It limits pinch points.
16:50
So it can operate near people without any safety cages.
16:54
The motors are very quiet and smooth, which reduces the noise, and it helps sprout to feel less intimidating in shared spaces.
17:05
Really, really cool.
17:06
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19:32
I mean, they are here.
19:33
There are several companies who are working on humanoid robots.
19:38
Fauna is the company that I've been talking about before the break.
19:41
And I did find out what the cost is.
19:44
They're priced at 50,000, which honestly really isn't that bad.
19:51
I know that's uh that's a pretty big commitment, but companies are uh are are testing them out, and obviously.
20:01
More wealthy individuals are testing them out.
20:04
So this is really, really cool.
20:06
And I I just I think it's a great that's a great idea.
20:11
So Fauna placed a, this is according to uh tech buzz.
20:17
Fauna placed a contrarium bet in the humanoid robot race.
20:21
While competitors chase factory floors and warehouse contracts, the startups launching Sprout, a nine-year-old sized humanoid designed to bring you a toothbrush.
20:34
So it's uh the size of a nine-year-old, is what they're saying.
20:37
It's 3.5 feet tall, three and a half feet tall.
20:42
The robot goes on sale today for $50,000.
20:47
And CEO Robert Cochran says hotels are already lining up.
20:55
He said, uh we said, what if we could build something lightweight, engaging, and safe to be around and capable enough to do some exciting things.
21:07
Well, what a cool idea.
21:10
And the article goes on to say it's a sharp departure from the prevailing wisdom.
21:15
More than a dozen U.S.
21:16
companies are pouring resources into humanoids built for industrial work.
21:22
Boston Dynamics recently signed a deal to integrate Google's AI into what's robotics.
21:27
Tesla is developing Optimus for manufacturing.
21:31
Startups like Agility Robotics, Figure AI, and One X are all targeting factories and logistics.
21:40
Which don't get me wrong, I think that's a good idea.
21:43
I think that robots really have a place in factories.
21:47
Factory work is it's oftentimes dangerous.
21:52
It's um it can be monotonous and boring, which leads to accidents, inefficiency, people not showing up to work and disrupting the uh the assembly lines.
22:10
So I think they really have a very consistent and good seat at the table in industries.
22:19
But Fauna's thesis is different, according to Tech Buzz.
22:24
The founding team, which includes veterans from Meta and Google believes hospitality and entertainment will crack first.
22:33
And they've already landed customers that suggest they might be right.
22:40
Signed on as an early buyer.
22:42
So did Boston Dynamics itself, which makes larger, stronger humanoids, but apparently sees value in Sprouts approach.
22:50
You know, the uh having a compact robot that specifically is designed for areas where humans are, like hotels, houses.
23:02
I think it's a really fantastic idea.
23:06
Uh I don't know what's going to come of this.
23:10
And I think we're just living in exciting times.
23:14
Now, my opinion, this is just my my opinion based on my background and where I see really, really big needs.
23:23
I I would much prefer the practical aspect of this.
23:28
You know, hotels, that's all good and great, having a butler that delivers toothbrushes and things like that, delivers towels to the pool.
23:40
How many times have you been at a hotel and you go to swim and you look in the in the towel bucket and there's absolutely nothing?
23:48
The towel cabinet or whatever, the towel cart, and there are no towels, and then you have to drip dry, you have to go out to the front desk, you're leaving a big trail of water, you have to ask somebody for for towels because there are no clean towels.
24:04
They say somebody will be right there, and then you wait shivering for the next 35 minutes until finally somebody shows up and brings three towels for the for the 10 people who are waiting for a towel.
24:19
You know, that kind of thing happens pretty often.
24:21
So I can see the benefit in that.
24:25
How many times have you been in a hotel and they said, well, your room's not clean yet.
24:30
We only have two workers who showed up today, and they have 16 rooms that they they need to clean before they can get to yours.
24:40
Been there, done that many times.
24:42
You know, there's definitely a market for this, and I think that's why hotels are pretty excited about this, and they're signing on pretty early.
24:51
But don't underestimate the need for elderly people.
24:57
And we have a very significant population in the United States that's elderly.
25:04
In fact, I want you to listen to some of these statistics.
25:07
I looked these up over the break, too.
25:09
Approximately 70% of Americans turning 65 will need some form of long-term care.
25:19
70%, that's the vast majority.
25:22
With many relying on in-home assistance, while around 55.8 million adults, ages 65 plus live in the U.S., that's 16.5% of our population.
25:41
Roughly 12 million people currently receive home care.
25:45
Roughly one in five Americans acts as a family caregiver for an older adult.
25:50
Now, keep in mind, all right.
25:52
So 12 million people, 12 million with an M.
25:58
That's a lot of people currently receive home care.
26:05
12 million.
26:07
Now I've done a lot of research on that, and that's why I'm I'm really, really interested in this aspect of robotics.
26:15
And it's not just robotics, it's it's just in general.
26:19
I'm very interested in that.
26:20
It's why the snow angels things happened.
26:25
Because I I about a year ago, I was running into this.
26:30
In fact, I did a show on it when I first started doing this show.
26:33
I was talking about driving around with my middle middle child, my son, and we were just looking at places, and he's like, Dad, how many, how many elderly people do you think are out there who can't get out to shovel their sidewalks and their driveways.
26:50
And that got my wheels spinning, and I was like, I I never really thought about it.
26:56
I've lived in the north most of my life, didn't cross my radar because usually when it snows, you just you dig yourself out and you don't really think about all the other vulnerable people.
27:08
So it got me to thinking, and then I found out that just this winter, the area agency on aging started a pilot program called Snow Angels to get volunteers to shovel people out.
27:21
And I was like, we got to sign up, we gotta do it, we gotta try it.
27:27
And it it's it's just such a good way to put your finger on the pulse of what's going on within your community.
27:35
And you find out what the needs are just last, literally, 10 o'clock at night.
27:46
I was uh over at a friend's house who is homebound, and I was bringing his trash out, brought his trash to the curb.
27:58
He had called me earlier in the day, and he said, Hey, it's uh I I hate to bother you.
28:03
Yeah, he usually starts that way.
28:04
I hate to bother you.
28:06
And I'm like, first of all, you're not a bother.
28:08
You you don't bother me at all.
28:10
What do you need?
28:13
Well, you needed uh prescription medication picked up, done.
28:17
Not a problem.
28:19
I said later today, I haven't gotten my trash gathered up yet, but later today, do you do you think you could bring my trash can to the curb?
28:27
Because tomorrow is trash day.
28:29
I was like, absolutely.
28:32
So after I uh put the kids in bed, I went over and I pulled the trash to the curb.
28:39
I did a search in our community.
28:41
I said, what's the number one need if if if a young kid was to start a business?
28:46
You know, back in my day, it was like kids just went and knocked doors.
28:50
We used to do that as kids.
28:51
We would knock doors and be like, hey, do you need your yard mode?
28:55
My one brother started a uh very successful mowing business, literally just having our mom drive us around, and he would knock doors and just ask people if they needed their yard mode.
29:10
So things have changed, people still need their yards mode, but now I did a search and I said, what is it in our community?
29:18
What's the number one need?
29:19
If a kid was to just knock doors and find a business to make money that's uh you know, cash in hand, and it's you're providing a service that people are desperate for.
29:30
What's the number one thing?
29:31
You know what the number one thing was pulling trash cans out to the curb.
29:38
Number one at the top of the list.
29:39
These big, and they're the big heavy trash cans in my town.
29:43
It's the the big 90 gallon bins.
29:47
Number one need.
29:50
And when I did a search for that, it recommended charging five dollars a week.
29:56
And uh you just knock doors and and ask people, do you need
30:00
Do you need your trash brought to the curb?
30:04
This is a very very big need.
30:07
And that was based on searches, internet searches that are done in my area.
30:14
So I asked, what's the most searched for thing that people need?
30:19
The service that nobody provides.
30:22
Bringing trash cans to the curb.
30:24
You know, you could have a robot do that.
30:25
Do you know you can have a robot go out and shovel sidewalks?
30:30
Maybe not three feet of snow, but uh if if you had a light snow, wouldn't that be a cool way to train the robot to go out and just say, hey, can you go outside and make sure that my step is shoveled off?
30:44
Make sure that my sidewalk is shoveled off.
30:47
If you're getting uh, say two inches an hour, which is a pretty heavy snowstorm.
30:52
Can you go out once an hour before the snow gets super deep?
30:58
Once an hour can you go out uh go out and shovel the sidewalk off just to keep up with it.
31:04
Can you cook a meal?
31:08
Could you bring the laundry basket down to the basement?
31:11
You know, a lot of elderly people, especially in my area.
31:14
We we all have basements.
31:17
And 99% of laundry rooms are in the basement.
31:22
Well, you have elderly people who can't get to the basement, they can't navigate the steps.
31:29
So who do you ask?
31:30
Does their laundry?
31:32
Well, that's a good question.
31:34
A lot of times they recycle clothing.
31:39
Believe it or not, a lot of times they go months without having their laundry done.
31:46
Because though they're getting in-home care, a lot of this is nursing in-home care, and nurses, quite frankly, don't do laundry.
31:58
They don't strip the sheets off the bed.
32:00
They don't they don't take the laundry, they don't take trash out to the curb.
32:04
They don't cook meals.
32:09
Yeah, they don't call 911 if somebody falls down.
32:16
You know how often that happens.
32:17
I listen to the scanner.
32:19
I hear it, believe it or not, fairly often.
32:24
Where somebody hasn't seen or heard of the neighbor for a long time, and they they send police officers to do a well check.
32:32
And lo and behold, they find they find the person lying on the floor, dehydrated, hungry.
32:40
They mess themselves.
32:43
You have to go to the bathroom.
32:45
I mean, this is the reality that millions of Americans are living in right now.
32:50
I just see a really, really big need for this right now.
32:53
So I'm excited about this.
32:55
I uh I hope, I hope and pray that people open this up in in this kind of category.
33:03
So let's look a little bit more at uh at Sprout.
33:07
This is the Fox News article.
33:09
Under the hood, Sprout uses a highly articulated body with 29 degrees of freedom to support smooth movement and expressive gestures.
33:18
Onboard NVIDIA compute provides the processing power needed for perception, navigation, and human robot interaction without relying on external systems.
33:33
A battery that supports several hours of active use makes Sprout practical for research, development, and real-world testing in shared human spaces.
33:46
Sprout's expressive face helps it communicate in a way that people can quickly understand.
33:52
Facial cues show that the robot what the robot is doing and how it's feeling.
33:56
So you do not need technical knowledge to follow along.
34:01
The robot can walk, kneel, crawl, recover from falls, which helps it move naturally in everyday spaces.
34:12
Because its motors are quiet and its movements are smooth, sprout feels less startling and more predictable when it's nearby.
34:20
Behind the scenes, Sprout supports teleportation uh uh teleoperation, not teleportation, teleoperation, mapping, and navigation.
34:33
These tools give developers the building blocks to create interactions that feel intuitive and human, not stiff or mechanical.
34:42
And I think that's uh that's really really important, and apparently that was important to the company.
34:48
They want this to feel and seem more humanoid than a robot.
34:56
Because you got the clanky robots and the things that look like you know something straight out of uh iRobot, where the robots take over the world and you know, dominate people and make us the submissives to them, and you know, like I I think people have a uh an already skeptical view of robots because they're thinking, oh, well, they're you know, they're only thinking about job security.
35:21
Well, they're gonna take our jobs and they're they're gonna take over the world, they're gonna be clunky, they're gonna they're gonna mess up and and and screw things up more than they're gonna help.
35:30
And so people have been really skeptical of humanoid robots.
35:37
And and to be honest, I'll be a hundred percent honest and transparent.
35:41
I've been skeptical.
35:44
I have a friend who was a developer years ago, and I think he still does this, to my knowledge.
35:52
But I remember having a conversation with him years ago.
35:55
I mean, he's been working on robots for a major car company, I won't say which one, but they've been working on humanoid robots for decades.
36:06
He's been working on robots since back in the 1990s, and I remember back in the early 2000s, I had a conversation with him, and he's like, You wouldn't believe what these robots are capable of.
36:22
I mean, this was before AI.
36:24
This was this was like light years ago.
36:29
I can't imagine what they're capable of now.
36:31
I think we have no idea.
36:33
I think most people, most ordinary citizens have no idea how capable these robots are, and they're only gonna get better and better with AI and integrated into the robots, it's gonna be absolutely stunning.
36:45
I think this is good news.
36:47
This is good news for America.
36:48
This is good news for the crisis that we're facing right now with uh with a lack of workers, a lack of um a lack of in-home workers and and support systems.
37:01
This is fantastic.
37:03
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39:48
Well, I don't think that this is like the gold rush of uh the olden days where you know people put their entire stock into moving their families out.
40:00
West and surviving harsh uh harsh environments and moving in the middle of of Death Valley, uh, you know, to to try to live in extreme desert conditions to mine gold, then you have all these ghost towns because they found out pretty quickly that there really wasn't that much gold, it just kind of dried up and as quickly as it came in, it went away.
40:28
Entire towns were built around this idea that gold was going to be um uh uh uh a big moneymaker, and there were some people who got wealthy uh for a short time, and then it all just kind of dried up.
40:43
So is robotics in the same situation?
40:47
I don't think so.
40:49
I really think that it's here to stay.
40:51
I think that artificial intelligence, especially uh, which is guiding the robotics now, it's all here to stay.
41:00
And it's not going anywhere.
41:03
AI's been around long enough that we realize it's being integrated into everything.
41:08
You can't formulate an email without AI being integrated into that.
41:14
There's at least an option to clean up your your email, to spell check it, to summarize it.
41:21
AI is being integrated into everything.
41:24
Your car's electronics.
41:27
I mean, it's it's everywhere.
41:30
And uh, you know, uh we can we can like it or we can protest it, but it's here, it's not going anywhere.
41:42
So the question is now that robots through fauna robotics, now that now that humanoid robots have been released, released to the public.
41:55
What are the implications?
41:56
What does that mean?
41:59
How are they going to be used?
42:00
Well, we don't really know how, and that's part of the excitement.
42:06
That's part of the plan from Fauna Robotics.
42:10
They want people to try this in a bunch of different areas because they as developers realize, hey, we don't have all the answers.
42:19
You know, we we're not gonna limit what the robots can do.
42:23
So we want you guys to test run them in whatever area of specialty your area is and try it out and see how we can improve and adapt the robot to work in your environment.
42:38
I think that's pretty cool.
42:39
I think that's really promising.
42:41
So here's from Funner Robotics website itself, and they're talking about uh the robot.
42:49
This was released on January 27th.
42:52
Fauna Robotics unveils Sprout, a lightweight, interactive and capable developer-ready humanoid platform.
43:03
Uh here's a quote from uh from Rob Cochran, co-founder.
43:08
He said, We started Fauna with a simple premise.
43:11
Robots belong around people.
43:14
To date, robotics efforts have delivered heavy machinery poorly suited to work alongside people in the places we spend most of our time.
43:23
Sprout is different.
43:25
It's a canvas for developers designed from first principles with safety in mind, so creators can focus on what excites them rather than building hardware and core software from scratch.
43:40
Um solving the deployment gap.
43:44
Despite advances in hardware, AI and robotics research, it remains rare to see a humanoid outside a lab or a video demo.
43:53
That's a good point.
43:56
Most of us don't see robots, humanoid robots anywhere in public.
44:03
Now we see the delivery, the delivery robots, the um of the food companies use them.
44:12
And they, you know, they've certainly had their problems.
44:14
You have the uh the the humanoid, or not humanoid, but the uh robotic self-driving cars, of course, they uh have their glitches, but they're out there.
44:30
I mean, people, especially in California, they they witness them, but humanoid robots, robots that actually look and are designed to look like humans, we just don't see them.
44:41
So that's a great point.
44:44
So I said Fauna Sprout addresses these challenges by providing safe, friendly platform for anyone from the advanced robotics researchers to first-time developers to build applications that work in production and in real human environments.
45:03
Uh, most exciting humanoid platforms are unsafe around people.
45:09
Or sorry, most existing.
45:12
Boy, I can't read today.
45:14
Most existing humanoid platforms are unsafe around people.
45:18
They tend to be heavy, rigid, overpowered, forcing developers to take industrial level precautions.
45:26
Sprout challenges this paradigm.
45:28
Instead of being hoisted on a gantry, Sprout can sit on a chair.
45:33
Instead of being caged off, Sprout can stand next to you at your desk.
45:37
The robot is designed with safety features from the ground up to reduce risk in shared spaces.
45:46
So exciting.
45:48
It's really, really cool.
45:52
Uh here's another quote from Josh Merrill, one of the co-founders and CTO.
46:00
He said, We built the robot we believe the robotics community has actually wanted, shaped by years of working closely with researchers and developers as the field of AI-driven robotics has matured.
46:14
Our goal is to make humanoid robots robots genuinely accessible, pairing thoughtfully designed hardware with a proper SDK instead of well-tuned robotic services.
46:26
We're excited to see a much broader community of creators, not just experts, build frontier level robotics applications.
46:35
That's what's really cool.
46:36
So this is basically an open source.
46:39
Hey, we we designed the robot, we spent years and years and years, we developed it, it's safe.
46:43
It's it's out there.
46:45
We're gonna put it out there to the public, and we want other novice developers to work on it and to fine-tune it for their specific demands.
46:55
And that's very similar to what Elon Musk does.
46:59
And part of the brilliancy and what's made him so successful is that he does open source.
47:06
He he said that he almost patents nothing.
47:11
And he's like, there's a very specific reason for that.
47:13
And he's like, it's because I want other people to be building electric cars.
47:19
I want the technology to advance, and the way that you advance the technology is to have lots and lots of people, lots of different companies, where you don't have one company that holds a monopoly, you have lots of companies building, and it's trial and error.
47:36
Yeah, there are gonna be engineers from other companies that see things that the original engineers completely missed, and that's the point.
47:45
So it makes the technology better, not worse.
47:48
A lot of people think patents are to protect your intellectual property, and you know, we built this excellent thing, and we don't want people to dumb it down.
47:59
That's actually a myth.
48:01
The reality is technology gets better.
48:05
Whenever you release it to the public and you have more people, it doesn't get worse, it gets better.
48:10
Why?
48:11
Because you have other developers who are working on the same product, and if it fails, their company fails.
48:20
So they want the technology to get better.
48:25
So open source is a really cool way to uh to help streamline some of this technology and shave years and years and sometimes decades off of research.
48:41
And Elon Musk has talked a lot about this before.
48:44
You can find interviews where he talks about this.
48:46
That's why SpaceX is so incredible.
48:51
That's why we're able to send people to the moon this year in just a few weeks.
49:00
We're gonna be sending the first humans since 1972.
49:04
We're gonna be sending the first humans to orbit the moon.
49:08
And then later, and in a couple years, we're gonna have the first humans land on the moon since 1972.
49:19
The reason we're able to develop the technology and have such safe space travel, right?
49:26
Do you remember the last time somebody that an astronaut has died?
49:29
We send people into space regularly.
49:34
You don't have people dying, it's very safe because you have open source where tons and tons and tons of engineers are working together to develop better technology.
49:49
You have the uh I I just I love the chopsticks that catch the the rockets that.
50:00
That have burned up all the fuel to reuse them.
50:05
It's recycled.
50:06
It used to be they they just dump these things in the ocean and let them hang out in the ocean and rot.
50:15
Well, now they recycle virtually everything.
50:20
That cut the cost way down.
50:22
It made it very efficient.
50:26
It's incredible when you see these things come down and uh land on a little launch pad.
50:32
They're coming from space.
50:35
And they come down and they land right exactly on X marks the spot.
50:42
It's incredible.
50:44
That's impressive.
50:46
The amount of engineering that goes into these things is tremendous.
50:52
So that's why I'm excited about this.
50:54
And I just see I see so many good implications.
50:58
So who is Sprout designed for?
51:02
It is Sprout is a developer-first humanoid platform rather than a finished consumer product.
51:10
It's designed for developers who want to build and test applications on accessible hardware.
51:17
Again, it has full SDK access, built in movement, perception, navigation, expression.
51:25
At the same time, enterprises can use Sprout to create next generation AI applications that operate safely in places like retail, hospitality, offices.
51:39
I mean, this is really, really cool.
51:40
Researchers can use the platform to study locomotion, manipulation, autonomy, and human robot interaction without building a robot from scratch.
51:52
That's brilliant to release this to the public.
51:55
Absolutely genius.
52:01
So what does this mean for you?
52:05
This is according to the Fox News article.
52:09
Even if you never plan to build a robot, Sprout signals a shift in how robotics companies think about everyday life.
52:17
Humanoid robots are no longer being designed for only factories and labs.
52:22
Companies like Fauna are being uh betting that the future of robotics depends on safety, trust, and natural interaction in human spaces.
52:32
If successful, platforms like Sprout could lead to robotics that assist in classrooms, support hospitality staff, help researchers move faster and create interactive experiences that feel less robotic and more human.
52:48
You know, it's really interesting.
52:50
They didn't mention what I think is the holy grail of all of this.
52:56
Working with people who have debilitating needs.
53:21
Elderly people, vulnerable people, uh disabled people.
53:29
There's a significant portion of our population that they just need they need help.
53:37
And having family members take care of them.
53:41
It's really challenging because people have to work, right?
53:45
So for eight, ten hours a day.
53:49
What do you do?
53:51
What do you do when people have to show up to work and people need they need their laundry done, they need their house cleaned, they need medications uh brought to them.
54:03
Hey, can you go get me my my pills?
54:05
I can't get up.
54:06
I can't physically get out of my chair.
54:09
There are a lot of people in that position.
54:13
And it's it's really heartbreaking.
54:18
There's a big big need for this.
54:20
And I'm excited to see where this leads.
54:23
I'm excited to see how researchers uh utilize this robot.
54:30
I'm excited to see how AI is going to be integrated into this to make it better.
54:36
So go Sprout go.
54:39
I I hope you watch videos on Sprout.
54:42
Uh Sprout's such a cool, such a cool robot.
54:46
And I think we're not even scratching the tip of the iceberg for what these things are capable of.
54:52
I think the next, honestly, the next five years, and that's how fast this stuff is moving, maybe even faster.
55:01
I think the next five years are going to be incredibly telling.
55:05
We're going to see a lot of advancements that we didn't dream were going to be possible.
55:11
And that's very good news.
55:15
You know, if used properly, if used to actually help people, this is very, very good news.
55:23
So we'll see what happens.
55:26
We'll see what happens, but I think it's promising.
55:33
You know, I think too about in schools, there's uh just such a need there.
55:40
There are uh a lot of we call them TSS's.
55:45
I don't even remember what that stands for, but it's a it's it's like a support person.
55:50
Uh there are kids with severe medical issues that need a constant person by their side to monitor uh their vitals and things like that.
56:01
So, you know, there are just so many implications, and I think it's really exciting.
56:05
Uh I'm excited to see how this is integrated into schools, how it's integrated into uh other businesses, though I'm not as excited about that because it's just there's in my opinion, it's not a need, that's more of a luxury.
56:24
But I could be wrong.
56:26
I think they're definitely there's definitely space for that.
56:28
There's a space for people to find what the needs are.
56:32
They're gonna know better than than I do, certainly, but I think it's very, very promising.
56:38
Uh, there are just so many different applications for this.
56:44
And the sky's the limit.
56:47
And uh the fact that the technology has come this far and it's only going to get better is very exciting.
56:54
And that, my friends, is the hidden lightness that we uh we're getting help where help is needed.
57:04
This isn't just a hobby.
57:06
This isn't hobbyists who are doing this.
57:08
Legitimate needs are going to be filled.
57:11
And that's exciting.
57:13
You can find more out about my show and get all the latest podcasts if you go to the mini navigation bar at America Outloud.news under our shows or schedule.
57:21
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57:23
There is a hidden lightness that shines inside of all of us.
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