Katherine Forrest: All right, well, so I wanted to start our little robotics episode, which we're really going to be talking about NVIDIA and some of what it's doing in the robotics space right now with some of the chips. But I wanted to talk about it just for a moment in terms of some of the developments that have been happening in terms of robotics for the home. And that's not necessarily what NVIDIA is doing, but I just thought it would be like a really fun little intro because there are now three different kinds of robots that you can order for your home. And I want to talk about the first one, which seems to be the easiest, and it's called the 1X Neo, Neo from 1X Norwegian Technologies. And this little fellow can do household chores pretty much right out-of-the-box. It's $20,000 in terms of U.S. dollars, but you can get a payment plan. And if it doesn't know how to do a chore, it has something called expert mode, where it can go into a little mode where it will be taught the chore. That's—it's a little bit, OK, you have to be ready for this because it does require a third party to then enter your home. It's basically the person enters through the robot, you know, does a sort of a remote software sort of taking over your computer for a little while while your IT is checking it out. So they remote in from, I don't know, Norway or wherever they are. And they will then teach the robot how to do this additional chore. So you have to be prepared for this third party to be in your house. So that's one version, but Neo comes pretty much out-of-the-box, able to do a few things right. Easy setup. Apparently this is what they say anyway. Then there's another one called Booster Robotics K1 Geek, and it goes for just under $6,000, so $5,999, and it does require sort of a custom setup, but it can walk, which so can Neo by the way, I should say. It can walk and all that, has different personalities. You can have it be a teacher, you could have it be a pet, like I don't really understand that part, but whatever. It can dance and do various things, but it doesn't do a lot of household chores. Then there's the Unitree family of robots. We know there's a lot of those. OK. But there's two in particular that I was exploring for my office robot along with Booster and Neo. And right now I have to say Neo's in the lead. But there's the Unitree Chinese R1 and that's sort of the base. And then there's the R1 Edu. And so the R1 goes for $4,999, so it's like just under $5,000. But the R1 Edu goes for about $15,000, actually almost $16,000, $15,950. And the Edu arrives as a functioning humanoid robot and it does take a little bit of a custom setup, but it can hear and speak and walk and it can be trained on household chores and you can converse with it and it can learn from you and all of that. The base R1 doesn't do as much, but it can sort of walk around and chat with you. Then there's Optimus, which hasn't yet—it's been delayed—gotten into at-scale manufacturing. Those three that I've mentioned were actually four because I mentioned two of the Unitrees, are manufactured at scale. But the Optimus has got all kinds of capabilities, including smart capabilities, but it's not yet being manufactured at scale. So these things are really coming. They're really happening. And as we talked about last week during the piece on Bill Gates, you don't want to get sort of lured into the idea that these humanoid robots are all falling down and falling apart and, you know, they're bursting at the seams because they're actually able to do a lot. A lot like the Neo can actually hold 55 pounds as it's sort of walking across the room. So it can really do things. So that's sort of my office robot contenders. They're real. And you may see one, Scott. And since you just sit down the hall from me, it may come and knock on your door and I don't know, ask you for something, even though you probably would send it to me by email. I don't even know why I would need to ask you for something, but I might just send the robot down to chat with you and sit down and have a conversation. Maybe do your mic setup for you before the next episode. So that's that. I also wanted to give a little sort of update. I also wanted to talk a little bit, just very briefly, about a little digression on robotics and the law and just to sort of alert our legal audience to the fact that when you're talking about robotics, you're talking about all kinds of areas of the law because you're talking about the AI models. If they're going to recognize you, there's biometrics and privacy, and then you have different kinds of actuators, which are what make the robot actually do things. If you're going to, for instance, have it move around, you've got these pieces that interact and actually activate different portions of the robot, and you've got product safety rules, some OSHA rules. Then you've also got some FDA, if you're actually using the robots for medical devices, NHTSA if you're using them for transportation, there are laws that could apply after deployment. And then, of course, you might run into, if there's a problem, all kinds of state product liability law. So there's no single scheme for these robots. So that's where we are with robots. But in late May, some interesting things have started to happen, and they've gone through the summer with regard to robots. So let's dig into that, you know, and talk about what NVIDIA's been doing.
Scott Caravello: Yeah, absolutely. So like you mentioned, in late May, it was when this development really got started. And it involves a partnership between NVIDIA, who, you know, we really think of as the U.S. chip giant, but is also really big in the robotic space, and Unitree, which is a Chinese robotics company. And they entered into a partnership that folks might find a little bit surprising at first. But basically it involved NVIDIA unveiling the company's first humanoid robot reference design. And when I say a reference design, I'm talking about a technical blueprint that others can then use as a starting point to build their own technology.
Katherine Forrest: Right. And that blueprint is called Isaac, and I'm going to call it Groot, although I think the O's are actually zeros, and it combines a body of a nearly six-foot-tall humanoid robot. OK, that's a pretty tall robot from Unitree, again, right. And by the way, those of you in our audience who have not gone onto YouTube and watched some of the YouTube Unitree videos, you've really got to do it. We've recommended it before. I still recommend it. But the hands for this Isaac Groot are—they're five finger. They're very dexterous and they're able to now do human-like manipulation. And there is also a brain, an onboard computer called Jetson Thor. And all of this all together, including the AI models, allow the robot to reason and to move. And a bunch of this sort of activation piece comes from NVIDIA. So the design is aimed at university and research labs like the Stanford, you know, research lab, ETH in Zurich and the like.
Scott Caravello: Right. And so, like I mentioned before, this collaboration between the two might strike some as surprising. And that would lead to the question of why is this happening when the United States has spent the last few years restricting what NVIDIA can sell to China, right? How does a flagship American robotics design end up being built around a Chinese robot?
Katherine Forrest: Right. And so this is not a show where we're going to be talking about sort of export controls. We've actually got a partner, John Carlin at Paul, Weiss, who's an expert in export controls and he's got a whole group that deals with it. But you know, in general, we all know that because it's in the newspapers all the time that export controls have been aimed at very advanced AI chips that have been used and that are used to train the largest frontier models, the AI frontier models. But they haven't been aimed as much at robotics and edge computing. So this partnership that uses a Chinese-made robot that is also using NVIDIA components is really on a different side of some of those questions. And so we're not going to sort of take a position on how that all works, but we're dealing with sort of a different area, so to speak.
Scott Caravello: Yeah. And this collaboration between the two is really a very good window into NVIDIA's bigger game plan, which actually folks might have seen in the Wall Street Journal this week. There was a piece about that, and basically arguing that NVIDIA wants to run the world's robots and that China is an eager customer. And the main thrust is that NVIDIA isn't just trying to sell chips into robotics, but it wants to sell the underlying platform, which is exactly what we're talking about with this Isaac Groot. It's the brains and the software that the industry is building on. And sort of I think the, you know, the commercial strategy is that that would make NVIDIA the default for robotics the same way that it's the default for AI in data centers.
Katherine Forrest: Right, exactly. Now, by the way, when you say this week, I just want to tell our audience that we're filming this—or not filming it. We're recording it, I see you, but we're not actually going to release a film of this. Our recording is on September 3rd. So it was this week, the, you know, the first of the last week of August, the early part of September when this Wall Street Journal article came out. And so NVIDIA's pitch for this reference design for Isaac Groot really provides an end-to-end stack. And you know, when we think of the word stack, I love that word stack. You know, it's like this tech word that talks about sort of different portions of software that go together and that build on one another. And everybody refers to these different sort of software components as a stack. So my digression on the word stack, but NVIDIA's pitch for this reference design is to provide this end-to-end stack, you know, like the Isaac Groot models and different simulation tools and the Jetson Thor computer that goes inside the robot. And, you know, it's just potentially a new in and of itself industrial revolution.
Scott Caravello: Completely, completely agree. And again, kind of what I mentioned before about China being the eager customer for NVIDIA's robotics chips, they're developing a chip specifically for the Chinese market called RTX Thingapro, and then also engaging with this collaboration that we've been discussing. China is already building the vast majority of the world's humanoid robots, so it really does sort of seem like it's a natural fit for what NVIDIA is developing.
Katherine Forrest: Right. And, you know, just as this was all coming out, just a few weeks after NVIDIA's reference design was unveiled, you know, the United States started to move in a slightly different direction on imports.
Scott Caravello: Yeah, so at the end of July, the Federal Communications Commission, or the FCC, added foreign-made advanced robots to what it calls its covered list. And in very plain terms, it means that it moved to ban new imports of foreign-made humanoid robots, so basically can't bring them into the country. As well as four-legged robot dog type machines, which you may have seen videos on social media of those things around the streets and gauging people's reactions.
Katherine Forrest: I call them quadrupeds.
Scott Caravello: Quadrupeds, yes, I prefer robot dog type, but that's fine. If you want to be specific about it, they also added certain power inverters, which are components used in things like renewable energy systems and data centers. So this is a totally separate track from what you were mentioning earlier, Katherine, very briefly about export controls, right, and what can be sent out of the country. This is about restrictions on robots flowing into the United States.
Katherine Forrest: Right. And to be clear, it's a completely different legal mechanism, as you're saying, from chip controls because the chip controls are run out of the Commerce Department and involve national security trade authority. We're not going to go into that. But this robot action is the FCC using its equipment authorization power. And that's the same basic tool that it's used before to keep certain kinds of foreign-made telecom gear and drones either controlled in terms of the U.S. market, constrained, sometimes even out of the U.S. market. So you know, these two things, these two pieces are really pointing in opposite directions right now, the import and the export.
Scott Caravello: So what's the rationale behind this policy position? Right, because at first glance, unless we're getting into Terminator territory, a humanoid robot that's doing household chores is not an obvious threat.
Katherine Forrest: So I have, and I think I've even mentioned it in the past, but I'm going to go back into it. Let's just say we have Country X, OK? Let's just not even take any particular country in the world. Country X outside of the United States makes a bunch of humanoid robots, sends them into the United States, and it's full of software, really smart AI, frontier capability software. And they're there doing your laundry and they're washing your dishes. Or for me, if they're in my office because Amy won't allow it at home. They're wandering down the hall and knocking on your door just to sit and have a chat, right? But what's to prevent somebody from having the ability to activate some sort of backdoor capability that could have that robot, you know, lock my door, lock me in, I don't know. You know, I don't want to call it Terminator territory, but you do have incredibly sophisticated software walking around. So I think that the idea of some restrictions or at least understanding of the potential of what could go on inside of these things is not an irrational thing for the future for people to think about. But the rationale as to why we treat AI chips differently right now in terms of exporting chips, but then the different rules relating to importing of humanoid robots, has to do with, you know, some supply chain vulnerabilities. If the U.S. leans on foreign-made robots in its factories, warehouses, critical infrastructure and we become too dependent, then we could end up having certain things be disrupted. So that helps explain some of what happened in July with some of the Commerce Department and its, you know, import controls. The other is cybersecurity, just as of what I've been saying or sort of alluding to, which is that these things are internet ready. They've got cameras and mics, and they record all kinds of things. And it's like a roving data collector. And it's not hypothetical. Just this past February, there was an engineer tinkering with his own robot vacuum, and he stumbled into a flaw that let him reach live camera feeds, microphone audio, and home maps of roughly 7,000 of these vacuums across two dozen countries.
Scott Caravello: And I think, Katherine, also because that example was actually specifically given in the FCC statement announcing this policy. And there was another example that was footnoted that I think gets exactly what you were discussing before about taking control of the robot, where not that that was necessarily proven, but someone was able to access a robot and could identify on the internet or through the connectivity where other robots were. If they were able to take control, then they can potentially spread that to others in what's sort of called a botnet attack, where they are remotely controlling a bunch of different devices and create a swarm of robots. So that's fun stuff. But back to the FCC position. The action is forward-looking, right? It's targeting new robots that are coming to the country, and it's not some sort of command to those who own or operate robots currently in the United States. Whether it be your household Roomba or within a factory, to rip out and shut down the robots that are already in use. And the FCC actually has provided a path for existing devices to get software and firmware updates, so it's really just about closing the door to new imports.
Katherine Forrest: Right. And to certain kinds of new imports. So we've got the exporting of chips, Commerce Department, importing of robots, FCC, and NVIDIA playing in sort of both spaces. That's sort of like how I wanted to clarify because we've been using FCC and Commerce Department and, we ended up maybe confusing people. But you know, there have been some lawsuits by some of the companies that have been prevented from actually importing their robots, you know, companies from outside of the United States trying to import their robots. And, you know, we'll have to see sort of where those come out.
Scott Caravello: Yeah, absolutely. So how have these recent developments landed politically?
Katherine Forrest: Well, China's not happy because, you know, they make about 80% right now by some estimates of the world's humanoid robots. And that's both a potentially huge market opportunity, right? But also, as I've said, you know, it could potentially be worrisome. So after the FCC's robot rule came out, Beijing's Commerce Ministry called it unilateral bullying.
Scott Caravello: And they went on, called it market distortion and saying that it's severely damaging U.S.–China trade stability and demanded that Washington revoke it or face countermeasures. And so analysts have pointed to two specific mechanisms Beijing could use to respond. And they're actually those that I think we hear about often when sort of talking about the sort of tit for tat between the U.S. and China. And that's tightening rare earth exports, which a lot of this hardware depends on, as well as squeezing market access inside China for U.S. companies like NVIDIA and other giants.
Katherine Forrest: Right. And, you know, Trump is set to host some of the Chinese leadership in September. And so we'll have to all watch that closely and see whether or not this comes up. But I just want to say that Neo, who is my leading contender for my office robot, Neo is Norwegian, all right? And so far I have not seen any restrictions on the import of Neo, right.
Scott Caravello: You know, what's really getting me, Katherine, is I'm a little bit worried about privilege. If you're going to have that thing in the office and we're talking about these cybersecurity concerns and what it's seeing and ingesting, right? If it's helping you get—so, that's a topic for another episode, Robots and Privilege.
Katherine Forrest: Oh, wow, interesting. OK, so it's not a person, so you wouldn't have a third party be present, right. So if you've got my Neo sitting in my office and he's listening to all my privileged conversations, he's not a third party present. But what if he were in expert mode? And expert mode was having some person in Norway teaching him how to Bluebook for me and had little Neo sitting at a table in my office and he's Bluebooking. But then this person from Norway is sort of half listening into my conversation. Then I'd have a piercing of the privilege. You're right.
Scott Caravello: Bottom line, check your terms of service.
Katherine Forrest: Bottom line, check your terms of service and, you know, maybe you can sort of switch Neo off if you're having certain conversations. I certainly don't want him participating. I don't want him giving advice.
Scott Caravello: Surely, surely not.
Katherine Forrest: All right, OK, that's all we've got time for today. We'll see folks next week, we hope, and it'll be—it's the back-to-school week that everybody's probably feeling. It's in the air. Even if you don't have kids heading off to school or anything like that. It just seems like it's in the air. But we'll see you then. I'm Katherine Forrest.
Scott Caravello: And I'm Scott Caravello, and if you do have kids, you should play this during school drop-off. I'm sure that they are going to love this podcast. Don't forget to like and subscribe.
Katherine Forrest: And Neo for Christmas. OK, bye, bye.
