When might we see human-like robots in our homes?

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Novosafo.

Robots are commonplace in factories and increasingly in warehouses like those run by Amazon,

but what about robots to help with household chores? So-called humanoids to load the dishwasher

or fold the laundry. To find out, we checked in with Ken Goldberg, Professor of Engineering at

UC Berkeley and co-founder of the AI and robotics company, Ambib robotics.

He spoke to us on route from a robotics conference in China.

Homes are incredibly messy.

Everyone's home is different, and there's so much variability, and the objects are very complex.

It's very difficult for robots to perceive what's going on in a home.

So, for example, if you have the robot clean and dinner table, you have glasses, wearing

glasses, and silverware, and those two things are particularly difficult for robots

because the transparency

makes the sensors confused and the specularities, the shiny parts of utensils, also confuse

today's sensors.

So robots cannot perceive what's going on. So they're going to drop

most of those things on the floor. Now, I understand that you were, we are catching you at Heathrow

airport in London because you are in transit back from a giant robotics conference in China.

Tell me about what your experience there was and based on what you saw,

what you think about the prospects of us having humanoid, so-called humanoid robots in our

homes anytime soon. Well, it was fascinating. This was the biggest conference I've seen where we

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