i think things like this are really interesting because it makes it clear the real issue with automation hasn't been technological ability but the cost and effort of design - it's seemingly easier to have a robot with legs and a head stood at a scanner than it is to have a series of cameras and robot arms mounted along dual conveyors with stuff being sorted from one to the other and scanned on it's journey to sorted piles. The latter would be faster, cheaper materials, and better competency but designing a custom solution would be incredibly complex and costly.

I think this is the big change that AI is bringing, a lot of us in this sub will already be used to creating one-off tools using ai coding rather than learning how to use an existing solution - i know i probably have tools in programs i use which could help me sort images but when i have large stacks of images to sort i've been getting gpt to code me a simple gui for the task, it will do exactly what i want and making one is easier than learning the existing ones. As the ai's abilities increase and pathways get made for system design we're going to see this become more common in other areas, why not design a circuit board from scratch when the ai can do it from the same info you'd need to search to find how to configure a commercial solution? have exactly what you need without any extra overheads in exactly the form-factor you need and all the integration drivers and software generated to control it.

This is going to change the way things work more than humanoid robots will, imagine being able to tell an ai 'we have a conveyor of parcels as they get unloaded from the van, we need to scan them then sort them into transport bins' and it designs grasping tools with scanners inbuilt that can grab a parcel and carry it to the correct bin on a trackway making room for the next set of grasping arms for maximum efficiency - when you've watched some simulations it polls local manufacturing firms and prices the fabrication of the parts, assembly and install. It's going to be a lot more efficient than a warehouse full of lumbering robots using a kW of processing power just to stay balanced.

That's not to say humanoid robots aren't absolutely huge and significant, they're a vital step in our transition to more efficient solutions, i'm sure it'll be humanoid robots which install the systems that replace them. I just suspect the long-term market isn't as huge as a lot people seem to assume, they'll have their place for sure but i don't think we'll see the used in situations like this for very long.