Agility Robotics’ vision of the future envisions human-like robots as ubiquitous as automobiles and smartphones in the not-too-distant future.

Jonathan Hurst, co-founder of Agility Robotics, which showed off its humanoid, “Digit,” to investors and the press Tuesday, said this is a historic moment.

Hurst is an engineer by trade and has been working on building an anthropomorphic robot since college. As time goes on, you will be able to ask these machines for whatever help you need.”

Digit’s current model is limited to loading and unloading bins, stacking items, and performing simple tasks. Tuesday night, the robot demonstrated its ability to operate autonomously and solve problems in real time, thanks to OpenAI’s ChatGPT 4.0 AI.

However, the demo also demonstrated how fickle the technology can be during testing. The robot repeated the command several times and completed the tasks out of order. A robot programmed to move bins from a storage rack to a conveyor belt fell over and couldn’t get up immediately.

Agility Robotics has implemented safety regulations that require humans to stay six feet away from Digit. Before we feel comfortable operating robots, we need thousands of hours of experience operating them, Hurst said. The robots will not be able to work seamlessly alongside humans for several years, he estimates.