Rodney Brooks on the Realities of Deploying Robots

Originally featured on Automate.org by Brian Heater

Robust.AI dropped two important — and closely connected — pieces of news last week. The headline grabber was the change in leadership, as longtime CEO Anthony Jules stepped into the chief innovation officer role, with former Fox Robotics CEO Marin Tchakarov taking the chief executive spot.  

That move was facilitated, in part, by news that the Bay Area company had deployed its 100th Carter unit. In a call last week, CTO Rodney Brooks confirmed that the total number of units shipped is higher, with plans to deploy those systems over the course of the next 30 days.  

The milestone “says it’s real,” according to Brooks. “I've been telling people, unless you get calls at 3 a.m. on a Sunday morning sometimes saying, ‘What the hell is going on?’ You haven't really deployed. That's the indicator to me that you're really out there, you're really making a difference. It's not just a show.” 

It’s a typically pragmatic response from Brooks, who has scaled robotics hardware companies twice already.  

“When you get 100 actually deployed, people are relying on you,” Brooks continues. “You have to have a team. You have to have the whole thing going 24 hours a day, seven days a week, just to be ready. That's when it starts to get real, because there's that many robots out there. Something might go wrong. We've only got one of those calls, but it says people are using it around the clock and it matters to them. “ 

A decade into his tenure as cofounder and CTO, iRobot managed the impossible, mainstreaming a home robot in a manner no company has recaptured in the decades since.  

From 2008 to 2018, Brooks held the same titles at Rethink, making in-roads in the industrial setting with cobots Baxter and Sawyer. By most accounts, the company was ahead of its time, introducing concepts that are only just beginning to reach a more mainstream acceptance. The robots, meanwhile, remain fixtures at academic institutions and research facilities.  

It’s the latter experience, in particular, that’s given Brooks fairly unique insight among the current crop of robotics startups. It’s the difference between “produced,” “shipped,” and “deployed.” One-hundred robots deployed is a bird in the hand, compared to the claims of thousands produced with limited, closed-door deployments. That’s not to say there isn’t a place for all these things, but it’s important to assign each the appropriate context.  

Brooks’ particular brand of pragmatism has earned him another sort of celebrity, as Chief Humanoid Skeptic. He notes that he recently rebranded what he deemed “humanoid theater” to the more specific “humanoid deployment theater,” a distinction that betrays the industry’s race to compile high-profile pilots.  

“It’s, ‘we've got robots deployed — well, they're off on the side,’ ” Brooks explains. “They're not really part of the operation, but our robots are part of the operation, and they're running every day.”  

One hundred robots deployed means laying the infrastructure for 1,000 robots, Brooks adds. And then 10,000 robots. In practical terms, that means hiring more humans to be closer to those robots — people to answer the late-night calls, who can service systems without flying halfway across the contiguous United States.  

It also meant finding new blood for Robust’s top spot. “Anthony  [Jules] and I at heart are technical people,” Brooks explains.  

“That's why he's taking the role of chief innovation officer. There's a lot happening with coding agents, etc. And he's really digging into that. The whole company is pivoting. We really have pivoted quickly over the last few months as coding agents have gotten real. There’s a lot of stuff to do there. Our board put it this way: when Anthony and I have some free time, we go and do technical stuff, because that's what we enjoy. We want someone, when they have free time, who goes and does customer stuff.” 

Tchakarov has a long tech industry CV. It’s hard to say precisely how much to read into his track record of leading companies into acquisition. He was CFO of smartwatch pioneer Pebble when it was purchased by Fitbit and the CEO of Kindred Systems and Fox Robotics, when they were acquired by Ocado and Symbotic, respectively.  

Those last few gigs represent a strong run in industrial robotics, particularly those focused on the fulfilment and grocery sectors.  

“We didn't want someone who's just had been doing software before, because doing hardware is very different,” Brooks said of the company’s CEO search. “We got someone who has done hardware and has done the hardware in the warehouse space a couple of times. He knows all the players, so it's great because we didn't have to train him up on stuff. He just knows what he's doing and knows people across the globe in this space.”