Robot ban: Why the FCC fears your Roomba

Robotics is the “latest front” in the “intensifying tech rivalry between Washington and Beijing,” said Steve Lohr and Xinyun Wu in The New York Times. The Federal Communications Commission last week said it would begin restricting imports of “humanoid and animal-like robots,” saying they could “function as Trojan Horses” for data collection and spy on Americans in their homes and offices. China called the measure a provocation and warned that it would retaliate. Its producers “dominate the global humanoid robot industry” to such a degree that “it has become nearly impossible to build a competitive humanoid robot without Chinese-made components.” But advanced robots are becoming “strategically important in an economy increasingly dependent on artificial intelligence.” AI startups are now experimenting with physical or embodied intelligence—essentially robots with AI capabilities—in order to teach their models about the physical world.

Popular household devices are getting caught in the crossfire, said Sean Hollister in The Verge. While the prohibition specifically calls out “humanoid robots” and “quadrupeds”—such as robot dogs—it extends to any “software-controlled robot that travels over the ground, weighs more than 4.4 pounds (including any dock), can perceive its environment, and has wireless connectivity.” That rounds up robot lawnmowers, sidewalk delivery robots, many warehouse automation machines—and even Roombas. Yes, the popular robot vacuum cleaner was acquired by a Chinese manufacturer in January, putting it on the FCC’s chopping block.

The ban covers only new models of foreign-made robots, said Jeremy Hsu in Ars Technica, so customers can still keep their old ones or buy older versions. And it should “theoretically encourage more U.S. and foreign companies to set up manufacturing facilities in the U.S.,” home to several fast-growing startups like Agility Robotics, Figure AI, and Boston Dynamics. But that’s not always the case. The FCC banned Chinese-made drones earlier this year, too, and it has yet to motivate a “competitive mass-market consumer-drone producer” to set up shop in the U.S.

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The fears about Chinese humanoid robots are fantastically over-blown, said Thomas Black in Bloomberg. Reading headlines, you’d think China is building robot armies ready to serve meals, fold laundry, and steal jobs. Hardly. Robots today work best at “predictable, repetitive, high-volume tasks,” like painting or welding on a factory line. And even then they can be hit or miss. It’s beyond their ability to do multiple tasks at once, making them largely unhelpful in homes, stores, hospitals, or even construction sites. After a lot of hype, businesses are now realizing these limitations. U.S. industrial robot orders have already fallen from a peak of 44,196 in 2022 down to 36,766 last year. “The vision of an expansion of robots into everyday tasks and life is there.” But we’re nowhere near that reality.