Why Humanoid Robots May Be The Sleeper Bet on AI

Artificial intelligence efforts are unfolding along two distinct tracks.

Featured in the December/January issue of Bloomberg Markets. Illustration: Arif Qazi for Bloomberg Markets

Photographer: Arif Qazi

First is large-language-model-based generative AI, an effort aimed ultimately at achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI)—systems that can reason like (or better than) humans in multiple domains. Second is embodied AI, or robotics, which has the objective of producing competent, helpful humanoid robots. Since the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, investors have largely focused on generative AI, which has dominated capital flows. By contrast, the era of humanoid robots still feels distant.

But perceptions about these two trajectories may soon flip. AGI may be much further out, and LLMs might ...