The Rise of Physical AI

We believe that humanoid robotics will be the most disruptive technology since the Internet. With humanoid robots, we are inviting artificial agents to live in our physical world, we are welcoming Physical AI. This will have profound consequences. 

2025 is going to be a breakthrough year. As technological advancements in AI, battery systems, and scalable manufacturing processes converge, humanoid robots are a few years away from becoming mainstream. We will start seeing truly impressive wide-scale experiments this year.  

XMAQUINA envisions a future where humanoid robots integrate into our daily lives, enhancing productivity, safety, and quality of life.

This transformative technology is too important to remain controlled by a handful of large corporations in a few countries. Given its inevitable military applications, it will become a strategic priority for sovereign nations to build their own ecosystems and solutions. Although this may lead to some degree of fragmentation, market dynamics are likely to gravitate toward a shared open-source foundation, much like how Android has become the dominant platform in the smartphone industry today.

XMAQUINA aims to accelerate the development of this open-source core and its ecosystem. By strategically investing in selected players, we aim to shape this emerging space and unlock its full potential. In the process, we believe DAO members will benefit greatly from the growth of this ground-breaking technology.

Why Humanoid Robots?

Given how popular culture has portrayed them, itʼs reasonable to ask why we persist in developing robots that resemble humans so closely. In movies like Terminator or I,Robot, the development of humanoid robots invariably leads to catastrophe. Ex Machina offers a more nuanced but equally cautionary tale. This modern exploration of artificial intelligence follows an android who manipulates the protagonist, ultimately breaking free and killing its creator. 

Given these dire science fiction scenarios, one might wonder: why do we continue pursuing robots that mirror human form?

Brett Adcock, CEO of Figure, offers a very clear answer: our world has been built by humans, for humans, with every object optimized for the human form.

Consider the domestic environment: a wheeled robot may struggle with something as simple as climbing stairs.  A quadrupedal robot could climb stairs , but neither is capable of operating human transportation modes such as bicycles or cars. These tools and machines fundamentally require a human form to function.

Our world is designed for beings with one head, two legs, and two hands. More specifically, the world is designed for the average adult human. Most objects are built for adults with average heights and average builds. Even among humans, the world is less accommodating to children, people with disabilities, or those outside average proportions. So, in order to work across both everyday and workplace environments, humanoid robots of average height and build will provide maximum utility.

Humans continue developing humanoid robots because they offer unparalleled versatility and utility, adapting to countless environments and tasks. They are truly the ultimate general purpose tool.

Read the full thesis here.