Nvidia partners with LG robotics to build humanoid robots in South Korea

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-and-lg-group-ai-factory/

by spwa4 • 1 month ago

59 86 1 month ago

blogs.nvidia.com

45612987• 1 month ago

LG group uses it naturally for spying from data aggregated in home appliances. The rationale is fluff.

A humanoid robot would demand continuous maintenance, especially after planned obsolescence kicks in. No robot has ever worked under dirt conditions.

htrp3• 1 month ago

why not hyundai (given the existing boston dynamics ownership)?

mkl• 1 month ago

Why not both? They partner with Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, etc.

PowerElectronix• 1 month ago

I can't wait to see the day I have to listen to the ad pitch of my robot butler before it goes make me a coffee.

spankibalt• 1 month ago

And you'll better start to practice worshipping those ads unless your ass wants to be the star in B-166ER's last home video.

accrual• 1 month ago

I hope early home robotics will be like a game console launch - a community rush to break through any initial barriers to homebrew. Specific early firmwares will be desirable and a whole community will form around creating exploits and running user software. As old robot units fall out of service and are sold in bulk, the community will pick them up and keep them running.

htrp3• 1 month ago

which means that late stage robotics (or game consoles) become very heavily locked walled gardens as every exploit gets patched.

vasco• 1 month ago

Sex robots.

Teever• 1 month ago

I for one eagerly look forward to alien-autopsy like videos of people reverse engineering robots that they acquired by 'disabling' whatever equivalent of Lime/Bird/Volt service sends out on the streets to do stuff for people.

It'll be neat to walk through some weirdo mechanics shop that's full of robots in different states of disassembly that have been repurposed to help with whatever mad scientist hacker schemes that they have in mind.

a34729t• 1 month ago

Dont forget the artificial people personalities

ourmandave• 1 month ago

The ads will run on the coffee cup which will be the only thing the robot will make coffee in.

And it will have a Keep Warm option for monthly subscribers.

trumpdong6• 1 month ago

There is no good reason to have a humanoid robot. None. Dishwashers do best in a dishwasher shape.

lenerdenator2• 1 month ago

Depends on what your definition of "good" is.

If your definition is "it could, at some point, enable me to stop paying humans for their labor and pass along more of the value to major shareholders like myself", then yes, that's a reason to want humanoid robots.

If your definition of "good" is a little more broadly scoped than the above - which it should be if you don't have an MBA and a substance abuse problem - then you're correct.

letmevoteplease2• 1 month ago

In a competitive market, this won't happen: "passing along more of the value to major shareholders like myself." The price of human labor will go down, but competition will force the price of goods to go down alongside it. Profit margins will stabilize, but the cost of living and the cost of goods will plummet. It's like the invention of the power loom: it was terrible for the wages of hand-weavers, but it made clothing radically cheaper and more abundant for the rest of humanity. The only way the shareholders keep all the value is if we allow monopolies to form.

The potential difference here is that it might eliminate all human labor which would likely force us into some new kind of economy. Hopefully something better than one where humans waste their lives on manual labor.

skeledrew7• 1 month ago

There won't be any value at all to pass along, as wage labour is the base requirement for a capital-driven economy.

Aardwolf• 1 month ago

I'd love the robot to fill and empty the dishwasher and put the stuff in the correct drawers and cabinets

edit: but if the robot could in addition also do dishes in the sink and not need a dishwasher at all, that'd also save up space in the kitchen for something else

011000113• 1 month ago

I'd rather have two dishwashers and an automated loading/dispensing system built into each one. The dishwasher is already a fairly optimal dish storage device. Using somewhat standardized dish dimensions would make it fairly easy to implement.

usrnm• 1 month ago

Dishwashers also cannot work without a human loading and unloading dishes. How do you propose to automate this part?

nearlyepic3• 1 month ago

It would actually be pretty easy to do with regular robotics (well, compared to a humanoid robot anyways). The reason nobody does it is that it takes up a ton of space which is at a huge premium in pretty much every kitchen ever.

Also like, loading and unloading the dishwasher is not that hard or time consuming.

nkozyra• 1 month ago

I think this is a good point, but it ignores the idea that a human form is not the ideal (or even closet to) one to do specific and generalized jobs.

quietbritishjim• 1 month ago

Where is my non-humanoid robot that does all the household cleaning? Including vacuuming the stairs (a roomba doesn't work there), dusting the surfaces, mopping floors, cleaning windows...

I guess a warehouse can be designed in a way that works well for a non-humanoid robot, but an environment designed for people in the first place (like a home) fundamentally needs to be person-shaped.

nerdjon• 1 month ago

A dishwasher is the only reason you can think of a humanoid robot? How about a robot to load and unload the dishwasher.

The fact is we live in a world built for humans. I have a robot vacuum and for it to be effective I had to setup my home in a certain way, and even then it is not fully effective.

People pay for cleaners to come into their home all the time, it shouldn't be hard to think why a humanoid robot would (theoretically, if it worked well) be far better than a purpose built machine in the home. But also in many cases working with those machines.

hilariously4• 1 month ago

You could build fully humanoid robots that solve every problem generically, or you could solve the sub problems much more efficiently - I don't know why everyone is all in on the hardest problem when in software and hardware we find that the "solve everything" tool basically doesn't work, because solving everything is usually solving nothing very fast.

trumpdong6• 1 month ago

How about integrating the cleaning mechanism into the dish cupboard so they don't need to be moved at all?

This exists. It's called dish drawers. Two mini-dishwashers in a unit with the idea that you will take your dishes out of one, use them, and put them in the other. When you need to, you run the dishwashing cycle in the dirty drawer. It does seem a little silly, but isn't storing your dishes directly in the dishwasher far more efficient than either manual or automated unloading?

mattlondon3• 1 month ago

A robot that cleans my toilet would be nice. Sure I could have a dedicated toilet cleaning robot, and a dedicated dishwasher loading robot, and a dedicated pickup-up-crap-off-the-floor-the-kids-have-left-around-robot ... or just something general purpose?

I don't care if it is humanoid or not, but given that our house is built for humans to interact with it seems reasonable that it should fit into that space.

logicchains2• 1 month ago

A robot with enough arm strength to properly clean a stubborn toilet wouldn't be safe around kids.

011000113• 1 month ago

A couple weeks ago I saw a proud post by a humanoid robot CEO showing off how well his robots could sort objects on an assembly line. It was painful to watch. It's like he's never seen a real industrial sorting system in his life. Vision algos from 30 years ago along with simple mechanics or puffs of air were doing it 100x faster back then. I'm not convinced there is a bubble in AI, but there's definitely one in humanoid robots.

htrp3• 1 month ago

This is the figure tweet?

IshKebab2• 1 month ago

Yeah but the idea is that you can have a generalist robot that can do many different assembly line tasks.

There are plenty of manufacturing tasks that are still done by humans because it's too much hassle to make a dedicated robot to do it. Even on high volume car manufacturing it's very common to have human steps.

Sorting is just where they've got to so far; not the final destination.

ck2• 1 month ago

So every 1000 physical bots are going to need the power and cooling equivalent of those super-popular datacenters they are trying to build everywhere

And I am virtually positive I know what the most popular application for them is going to become, the same way we've somehow decided to legalize gambling and drugs and make them available at a click to everyone everywhere

BTW are people going to be able to hack them to commit crimes? Protest for them?

But eventually everything is used for war to murder undesirables, we're only a decade away from the US or Israel etc. airdropping 1000 armed humanoid robots into a civilian space to hunt for "terrorists"

logicchains2• 1 month ago

we're only a decade away from the US or Israel etc. airdropping 1000 armed humanoid robots into a civilian space to hunt for "terrorists"

Currently they just bomb the buildings into the ground, killing everyone indiscriminately, so robots can't be any worse than that.

ksec• 1 month ago

I have written this before, It is not AI with digital automation that worries me, generally speaking I think that is a good direction even thought we are still in early stage.

It is Humanoid, that will change everything. While we are still someway off, if we had PC - > Internet > Smartphone > AI, what is after AI will be Humanoid.

We still have another 4-5 years to go on current AI, and then Humanoid will further carry AI forward. This is similar to how Smartphone made the whole internet population 5 - 10 times bigger, further increasing demand on internet infrastructure. If anything, Apple should work on this. Perhaps the only thing that will be bigger than iPhone.

ianm218• 1 month ago

You say it worries you more than pure digital AI but don't explain. What is it about that humanoids that makes you worry?

forshaper• 1 month ago

I was thinking the other day that Apple is best positioned for drone companions- not even necessarily humanoid, but solving the battery charge problem to have an assistant follow you everywhere.

chaostheory• 1 month ago

You’d only have to worry if we still had a long horizon of peace and globalism. With more potential breaks in supply chains, everything will cost a lot more in terms of time and money.

elil172• 1 month ago

It is good to see someone finally working on one of these without the stupid legs

(I think the legs are stupid because they give your robot the chance to fall over and are not relevant for most environments).

gacgacgac3• 1 month ago

Do you have stairs in your house?

forgotusername62• 1 month ago

Two robots

geetee• 1 month ago

I am protected

vitally3643• 1 month ago

To be fair, there are wheel arrangements which can negotiate stairs. Tank treads can probably do it too.

elil172• 1 month ago

The problems with legs are sufficient that having two robots would be better than having one with legs. Here's why:

- You can increase the payload a lot

- You can increase the torso weight which means you can use cheaper, heavier components

- It won't fall down and hurt someone if it malfunctions

- It will never be in a position where it might fall down the stairs (if it were, it could kill someone)

- It will use less power/have a longer battery life

fuzzythinker• 1 month ago

A carrier bot can be parked near the stairs to transport the bot to different floors

raincom2• 1 month ago

Nvidia needs to keep the hype train going, by throwing darts in every possible direction.

madaxe_again• 1 month ago

They’ve been throwing darts in this particular direction for many, many years - back when I was watching 2 minute papers with interest and hoovering up their stock at $0.80, long before the hype train pulled out of the station.

This is all mature stack, and the value is enormous and largely unrealised at this point - the systems they have for everything from training to implementation to edge inference basically present a complete capture of the ecosystem for robotics, autonomous vehicles, manufacturing, you name it - anything where you’re integrating input streams and acting on it, they’ve got covered, end to end.

I continue to hold a substantial chunk of Nvidia - because while hyperscaler spend may wane once the initial arms race subsides, they are uniquely positioned to pivot to making use of the output of hyperscaler and other GPU product.

yalogin• 1 month ago

We are going to be conditioned into thinking 20k-50k for a robot is ok to spend. The question is how long before get there

sandworm1012• 1 month ago

And we are being conditioned to think chores like getting drinks and putting the dishes away are beneath us. It is up there with motion- or voice-activated room lights. Want a robot to bring you coffee in bed each morning? Unless you are in a wheelchair, put the coffee machine on a timer and walk to the kitchen you lazy piece of ...

Dont know how to make toast? Too lazy to clean your own sheets? Everyone wanting one of these robots should have to do a few weeks of army basic training before earning the right to be this lazy. (Actuallty, iirc, we didnt wash our own sheets. But we did make our own toast!)

snek_case• 1 month ago

I agree there's a path where this encourages people to be even more sedentary and lazy. On the other hand, if I cook every meal and clean up after, plus take care of home cleaning, I could easily spend 3 hours a day on a variety of home tasks. A robot could potentially prepare better quality meals from fresh ingredients and save me 3 hours a day. It could also fix holes in my clothes and do other tasks I'm just not motivated enough to do. So the way to think about it is like you just gained a huge amount of energy and free time to do things you weren't doing before.

ericd• 1 month ago

Well yeah, if it can do most of the household chores and lasts a decade, it’s totally worth as much as a car to many people.

netrap• 1 month ago

If it provides similar utility as a car, what's the big deal about that price? It would be the same type of purchase, right?

sandworm1012• 1 month ago

No. A car empowers me to do things i cannot do myself. That is very different than taking on mundane tasks to free up more time for more minecraft.

marcusverus• 1 month ago

Nobody has to condition me to see a useful robot as being worth 20K+. Being able to offload domestic labor would be a huge win. So would the more subtle benefits of living in a home that is always in pristine condition.

Once they're able to cook, they'll be in every middle-class household on earth.

jjav• 1 month ago

That robot will of course be transmitting 24/7 video and audio to the mothership and be fully remotely controllable, and its corporate overlord will be able to override any programming you give it. Of course, "to enhance your customer experience".

No amount of money in the world would convince me to allow such a monster in my house.

skeledrew7• 1 month ago

How did this "Physical AI" term originate? Isn't "robot" good enough anymore? Or "android" (though maybe that should be reserved for the really human-like machines)?

phyzix5761• 1 month ago

I recently published an article on this topic titled The Next Big Leap: https://arkvis.com/blog/2026-06-05_the-next-big-leap.html

Danox• 1 month ago

Does this mean Nvidia actually has an actual working operating system? If so, what are they waiting for? And why do they need Microsoft? For their latest Arm venture.

Nvidia partners with LG robotics to build humanoid robots in South Korea

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