High yang predicts humanoid robots will understand speech by next year, but household use still far off

According to Reuters, High Yang, a co-founder and chief scientist at Qianxun Intelligence, predicts that humanoid robots will be able to understand spoken commands and perform most general tasks by next year. However, he notes that achieving practical household use remains a long-term goal. Yang, a robotics assistant professor at Tsinghua University, highlights that the 'brain' is the weakest link in robot technology, with the team aiming for a 'GPT-3.0' level milestone by mid-2027, enabling natural language interaction and task execution. Qianxun Intelligence has deployed approximately 1,000 contract workers nationwide to collect real-world data for training robots. Currently, their robots achieve a 90% success rate in structured home environments for simple tasks. Yang expects initial industrial applications within the next one to two years, with commercial service scenarios emerging two years later. However, he acknowledges that household integration remains significantly more challenging, as robots have progressed from performing single tasks like pouring water to executing complex workflows in large spaces. Despite these advancements, fine motor skills such as unscrewing a bottle cap and handling novel tasks remain unresolved challenges for current robotic systems.