No Priors Ep. 58 | The argument for humanoid robots with Brett Adcock from Figure

Humans are always doing work that is dull or dangerous. Brett Adcock, the founder and CEO of Figure AI, wants to build a fleet of robots that can do everything from work in a factory or warehouse to folding your laundry in the home. Today on No Priors, Sarah got the chance to talk with Brett about how a company that is only 21 months old has already built humanoid robots that not only walk the walk by performing tasks like item retrieval and making a cup of coffee but they also talk the talk through speech to speech reasoning. In this episode, Brett and Sarah discuss why right now is the correct time to build a fleet of AI robots and how implementation in industrial settings will be a stepping stone into AI robots coming into the home. They also get into how Brett built a team of world class engineers, commercial partnerships with BMW and OpenAI that are accelerating their growth, and the plan to achieve social acceptance for AI robots. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @adcock_brett Show Notes: (0:00) Brett’s background (3:09) Figure AI Thesis (5:51) The argument for humanoid robots (7:36) Figure AI public demos (12:38) Mitigating risk factors (15:20) Designing the org chart and finding the team (16:38) Deployment timeline (20:41) Build vs buy and vertical integration (23:04) Product management at Figure (28:37) Corporate partnerships (31:58) Humans at home (33:38) Social acceptance (35:41) AGI vs the robots

Sarah GuohostBrett Adcockguest

Apr 4, 202438mWatch on YouTube ↗

EPISODE INFO

Released: April 4, 2024
Duration: 38m
Channel: No Priors
Watch on YouTube: ▶ Open ↗

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Humans are always doing work that is dull or dangerous. Brett Adcock, the founder and CEO of Figure AI, wants to build a fleet of robots that can do everything from work in a factory or warehouse to folding your laundry in the home. Today on No Priors, Sarah got the chance to talk with Brett about how a company that is only 21 months old has already built humanoid robots that not only walk the walk by performing tasks like item retrieval and making a cup of coffee but they also talk the talk through speech to speech reasoning. In this episode, Brett and Sarah discuss why right now is the correct time to build a fleet of AI robots and how implementation in industrial settings will be a stepping stone into AI robots coming into the home. They also get into how Brett built a team of world class engineers, commercial partnerships with BMW and OpenAI that are accelerating their growth, and the plan to achieve social acceptance for AI robots. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @adcock_brett Show Notes: (0:00) Brett’s background (3:09) Figure AI Thesis (5:51) The argument for humanoid robots (7:36) Figure AI public demos (12:38) Mitigating risk factors (15:20) Designing the org chart and finding the team (16:38) Deployment timeline (20:41) Build vs buy and vertical integration (23:04) Product management at Figure (28:37) Corporate partnerships (31:58) Humans at home (33:38) Social acceptance (35:41) AGI vs the robots

SPEAKERS

Sarah Guo
host
Brett Adcock
guest

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of No Priors, featuring Sarah Guo and Brett Adcock, No Priors Ep. 58 | The argument for humanoid robots with Brett Adcock from Figure explores brett Adcock bets on humanoid robots as universal labor platform Brett Adcock, founder and CEO of Figure AI, explains why humanoid, general‑purpose robots could become the largest business in the world by automating a massive share of human labor. He argues that now is the first moment the core technologies—batteries, actuators, locomotion control, and advanced AI models—are good enough to make bipedal robots commercially viable. Figure is starting with industrial use cases like manufacturing and logistics, while simultaneously pushing toward household robots, using end‑to‑end neural models and speech as the primary interface in partnership with OpenAI. Adcock details Figure’s highly vertically integrated, fast-iteration hardware/software development approach, and discusses societal acceptance, safety, and implications for the AGI timeline.

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