Robotics Investments Built on Flawed, Unsustainable Assumptions, Warns Top Researcher

Robotics sector faces reality check as leading expert exposes fundamental investment flaws.

The AI Revolution's Broken Promises

Investment dollars pour into robotics startups based on projections that don't withstand scrutiny. Market forecasts assume linear adoption curves when real-world implementation faces regulatory hurdles, technical limitations, and workforce resistance.

Venture capital chasing the next big thing overlooks basic economics—robotics companies burn cash faster than crypto projects during a bull run, with fewer viable exit strategies.

The Sustainability Mirage

Researchers point to gaping holes in operational cost assumptions. Maintenance expenses routinely exceed projections by 300%, while deployment timelines stretch years beyond optimistic forecasts. The 'set it and forget it' automation dream clashes with continuous calibration needs and specialized technician requirements.

Hardware limitations compound the issue—battery life, sensor degradation, and environmental adaptability challenges remain largely unaddressed in investor pitch decks.

Wake-Up Call for Tech Finance

The robotics gold rush mirrors blockchain mania without the decentralized upside. At least with crypto, you can lose money faster and move on to the next shiny object. Robotics investments tie up capital for years before revealing their fundamental flaws.

Maybe next time VCs will actually read the technical due diligence reports instead of just betting on buzzwords.

Future robots won’t look human, Rodney predicts 

In an essay published by Rodney Brooks, he highlights the lack of established infrastructure in the robotics industry to capture, store, and use touch data. Unlike vision and speech, where there are plenty of datasets and signal processing frameworks, touch remains underdeveloped in hardware and algorithm design. 

According to Brooks, many robot systems today lack adequate force feedback, fine finger control, and robust tactile sensing, which are essential for general-purpose manipulation. He also highlighted safety concerns when robots continue to scale. Brooks believes that as size increases, so does the size and body of robots, meaning a fall from a larger robot could be far more dangerous than from a smaller one. 

Scaling up in size for robots means its mass grows with the cube of linear scaling, while also structural strength grows with the square, creating safety challenges. Brooks revealed that walking upright is another major hurdle for the existing humanoid robots, pointing out that they use energy-intensive control and are not yet structurally safe to be NEAR humans when in motion.

He argues that to operate in human environments, robots must be certified as SAFE when people stand within mere centimeters, pointing out that the current designs have not achieved that. 

Brooks predicts that in the next fifteen years, the most successful robots marketed as humanoid will not look like humans; instead, they will rely on wheels, multiple arms, and specialized sensors rather than walking upright on two legs. He added that the current funding rounds to support humanoid experiments are unlikely to result in the mass production of humanoid machines.

Mass humanoid robot adoption is much further away than expected

Chris Camillo, a renowned investor who turned $20K to $60 million by investing in robotics, has also sounded his warnings, revealing that after spending more than 400 hours researching the space, he remains optimistic about long-term potential.

Still, the challenges ahead are being misinterpreted by many investors. At the Independent Investor summit, Camillo points out that the perception that manufacturing capacity is the key bottleneck for humanoid robots is misguided. 

“Most people I speak to that are deeply engaged with this space, we all agree on one thing: at the point where we actually have a scalable humanoid robotics platform, fully scalable that has met all the KPI thresholds… we will start a 10–15 year supply-demand imbalance, where it doesn’t matter how much you can manufacture,” 

–Chris Camillo, Renowned Robotic Investor

Camilllo explained that the difficulty lies in deployment, not production, and pointed out the integration challenges companies face when adopting generalized robotics. He cited that it’s hard to deploy generalized robots at Walmart, FedEx, or Coca-Cola, and that it will take years of strategic work, integration, preparing a workforce, and digitizing inventory before incorporating humanoid robots into the manufacturing floor or attempting to do anything.

Both Camillio and Brooks point out that much of the investor community currently fails to appreciate how long and complex the process will be. As a result, while humanoid robots may eventually play a role in global industries, the timeline for real-world value may be far longer than they predict. 

Join Bybit now and claim a $50 bonus in minutes