JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Humanoid robots are coming. Most are made in China, where the government wants them to join people in the workplace. NPR's John Ruwitch went to a training center where people are teaching them how.
FAN JINGKANG: (Non-English language spoken).
JOHN RUWITCH, BYLINE: OK.
Twenty-year-old Fan Jingkang has a virtual reality headset slung around his neck and a VR controller in each hand.
FAN: (Non-English language spoken).
RUWITCH: He's at the controls of a humanoid robot on wheels. It's made of black and white plastic. It has a head with two camera lenses for eyes and arms with dextrous five-fingered hands. It's practicing working in a cafe setting, so Fan rolls it to a counter, guides it to pick up paper cups, turn and drop them into a trash can.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRASH FALLING INTO TRASH CAN)
FAN: (Non-English language spoken).
RUWITCH: Fan's colleague plucks them out, puts them back on the counter, and Fan does it again and again and again.
FAN: (Non-English language spoken).
RUWITCH: There's a laptop tethered to the robot, and Fan explains that all that repetition is creating data.
FAN: (Non-English language spoken).
RUWITCH: This is robot training at Wuwen AI. It's a company a couple hours west of Shanghai that's part of a national pilot program to create the mountains of data that'll be required to make AI-enabled humanoid robots practical. Embodied AI, or robots run by artificial intelligence, is a big deal in China. The government has made it a core pillar of China's industrial policy. That's partly because leaders think robots will be a huge global industry, a so-called new productive force. Also, China faces a shrinking and aging population, something the U.S. and other countries face too. Many think humanoid robots can eventually shore up a dwindling workforce.
WANG YUEN: (Non-English language spoken).
RUWITCH: Wang Yuen is a manager here.
WANG: (Non-English language spoken).
RUWITCH: Wang explains that robots can't just look up how to do stuff in the real world. They need detailed data about how to move in 3D spaces, things like how to adapt to changes in lighting and how hard they can grip that paper cup without crushing it.
WANG: (Non-English language spoken).
RUWITCH: At this 86,000-square-foot facility, teams of people create that data by running robots or robot parts through real-world actions. It's not like dog training where eventually the pet goes home with someone. The data will be used to program other robots.
WANG: (Non-English language spoken).
RUWITCH: In a mock kitchen, a person sits on a lifeguard chair and uses a remote control to make a humanoid robot open cabinet doors, put stuff in and take it out.
(SOUNDBITE OF METAL OBJECTS FALLING ONTO SURFACE)
RUWITCH: Nearby, a guy is holding a two pronged grabber that's supposed to simulate a simple robot hand.
(SOUNDBITE OF CLAPPING)
RUWITCH: He picks up fake eggs with it and places them in a container, one by one. A GoPro-like camera records everything for the database. Down the hall, there's a hotel room setup where robots learn to make beds and tidy up.
WANG: (Non-English language spoken).
(SOUNDBITE OF ELECTRONIC CHIME)
RUWITCH: And upstairs are factory and logistics center mockups.
(SOUNDBITE OF ELECTRIC WHIRRING)
RUWITCH: One robot torso with human-like hands is being trained to sand wood. Another robot is moving boxes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BOXES BEING MOVED)
RUWITCH: If you watch Chinese state media, you'll hear robotics experts from different universities and labs making the case for humanoid robots - that they make sense because the spaces we live in are designed for people. These robots can adapt to things like the width of corridors, the shape of stairs and doorknobs, and they'll be more natural for people to interact with.
WANG: (Non-English language spoken).
RUWITCH: Wuwen does not make robots. They come from other companies. But Wang says the data they collect will feed what she calls their big brains.
WANG: (Non-English language spoken).
RUWITCH: With enough data, robots can make generalizations about situations they encounter and adapt on the fly.
WANG: (Non-English language spoken).
RUWITCH: That's something most industrial robots can't do because they're programmed to perform one simple task. For now, most of the tens of thousands of humanoid robots sold in China have gone to places like Wuwen AI for training. And that training takes practice.
FAN: (Non-English language spoken).
RUWITCH: (Non-English language spoken).
Fan Jingkang hands me the VR headset and the controllers. It is not easy. I nearly crash the robot.
FAN: (Non-English language spoken).
RUWITCH: When I'm done, Fan deletes the data I create.
FAN: (Non-English language spoken).
RUWITCH: We wouldn't want future robots learning the wrong thing. John Ruwitch, NPR News, Deqing, China. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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