WEBVTT - Investing in the Future of Humanoid Robots 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:04.360 Humanoid robots were once confined to the realms of science 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:09.360 fiction think Terminator and Westworld, but recent tech breakthroughs are 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:14.800 bringing this fantasy closer to reality. BMW, Amazon and Boston 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:18.680 Dynamics are among big companies developing this tech, and Elon 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:22.840 Musk is deploying Optimis, a general purpose humanoid robot which 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:25.760 could be commercially available as early as twenty twenty six. 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:31.280 Investors are already jumping on the bandwagon. According to Bloomberg Intelligence, 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:34.800 a basket of humanoid related stocks in Asia is up 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:37.760 almost sixty percent year to date, making it one of 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:43.040 the best performing themes this year. You're listening to Asia 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:44.640 Centric from Bloomberg Intelligence. 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:47.640 I'm John Lee in Hong Kong, and I'm Kadidmitrieva also 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:48.200 in Hong Kong. 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:52.360 How close are we to seeing humanoid robots being commercially 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:56.320 available on a wide scale? What are the economic implications 0:00:56.760 --> 0:00:59.720 and what role Asia, particularly China playing this. 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:01.680 Name industry Today? 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:05.280 We have Sean Darby, equity strategist at Mizooho Securities to 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:08.800 discuss and it's a second time on Asia Centric. He 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:11.640 joins us here in Hong Kong. Welcome Sean, Thank you 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:14.560 very much really appreciate you being here to walk us 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:19.080 through this brave new world of humanoid robotics. Maybe we 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:22.640 could just start by explaining what is a humanoid robot? 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:26.319 How does it differ from kind of traditional robotics. 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:32.160 That's a very good question, I guess the traditional robots 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:35.640 really evolved from the fact that they were labor cost 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:41.480 saving productive machines, and principally they were deployed in the 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:47.960 auto industry, So these were very easily to replace humans 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:52.480 because the production line is one very long, continuous process, 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:59.320 So most of the industrial robot makers essentially utilize these 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:04.440 fixed robots in various tasks along the production line, and 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:08.280 then the humanoid sort of evolved from that in two 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:12.360 different directions. The first one was that the logistics and 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:17.359 warehouse industry took those fixed robots and started to allow 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:21.480 them to have some maneuverability in placing items on shelves 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:24.840 and taking items from shelves and putting it into another location. 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:29.919 It was fairly rudimentary, but it started the whole process 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:34.119 of allowing flexibility to wear a robot could be situated. 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:38.720 The other direction from where the humanoids developed was actually 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:42.560 from the auto industry, so the auto industry had learned 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:47.120 how well the production processes were using fixed robotic systems, 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:50.720 and they were able to take a lot of different 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:55.320 items from a car, like your sensors, your battery, and 0:02:55.720 --> 0:03:00.840 also your rotators. So the maneuverability of the auto when 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:05.800 we would call that reduction gear and actuators. Essentially about 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:10.079 three quarters of the humanoid came actually from the auto 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:17.040 industry in the last six months. The threshold for bringing 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:22.000 humanoids into the mainstream occurred simply from the ability to 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:28.080 access very cheap AI. So the auto manufacturers and the 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:32.720 traditional robot makers first of all, never thought that they 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:40.080 could purchase or acquire processing capability and pattern recognition from 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:45.480 device from any sort of traditional software, and essentially AI 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:48.520 came into that sort of mainstream and allowed them to 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:53.840 absorb that at very very low cost. So you had 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:57.800 two things occurring. One is that the cost of purchasing 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:02.119 AI dropped significantly. It's almost a free, open source architecture. 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:07.680 And secondly, the sheer processing and pattern recognition, which is 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:14.280 really what allows the humanoid to do various tasks different places, 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:18.680 has been able to be quickly adapted into the physical 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:22.960 structure of the humanoid. So It wasn't because of the 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:26.560 cost of labor. It was simply because cost dropped for 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:31.560 building a humanoid. And as I said, it was still 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:37.360 probably is the best example of AI being absorbed into 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:42.520 a manufacturing process and being successfully deployed as well. So 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:45.560 I think those two things came from different directions. The 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:48.720 cost of AI was very low and the sheer processing 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:52.360 power that manufacturers never thought they could attain and saw. 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:55.400 Why was there such an excitement Vishy. 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:57.400 Though, Yeah, because it's quite recently, like you've just said, 0:04:57.440 --> 0:04:58.240 six months. 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:02.560 Well, I think there had been in the background quite 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:07.200 a number of robot companies, some of them which came in, 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:11.120 as I say, from different directions, and all of them 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:14.720 were able to leap on to this open source architecture 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:20.280 and recognize just how quickly they could deploy a humanoid. 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:23.320 As I said, most of the other available technology has 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:26.440 been around for some time, but it was really that 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:33.039 ability to combine AI with the dexterity of the humanoid skeleton. 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:36.680 So most of those that you had seen in the 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:41.320 last year or so were essentially prototypes that couldn't really 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:44.720 be mass produced. But now that you have just all 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:49.200 the various elements coming together, and at a pricing point 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:53.440 which allows for mass adoption. I think the way I 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:55.680 would say to you is that you look at what's 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:58.880 happened in the ev industry where car prices have dropped. 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:02.120 You get to those tipping points where suddenly there's a 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:06.960 huge wave of demand that can actually mean that you 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:10.039 can make these goods at a very very profitable level. 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:13.080 And I think put it this way, there was no 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:18.799 monopoly on creating humanoids, and because auto companies and various 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:22.960 groups within the industry had already had some sort of 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:26.720 manufacturing robots, suddenly you've seen the sort of plethora of 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:29.440 various companies coming out with humanoids. 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:33.680 Asia Centric is produced by Bloomberg Intelligence, where more than 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:37.640 five hundred experienced analysts and strategists work around the clock 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:41.200 to bring you timely, world class research. Our coverage spans 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:45.520 two hundred market industries, currencies, commodities, and industries, as well 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:48.520 as over two thousand equities and credits. To learn more 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:52.799 about Bloomberg Intelligence, visit bi go on the Bloomberg terminal. 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:55.839 If you like what you hear, don't forget to subscribe 0:06:55.880 --> 0:07:00.200 and share how good is the technology? Now see some 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:03.400 videos of a humanoid robot that picks up an apple 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:06.839 and gives it a customer. But when you're going to 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:11.520 see humanoid robot actually do real meaningful things like maybe 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:13.640 cook for you, clean the house. 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:17.560 So I think the way I would look at it 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:21.600 at the moment is that to get a humanoid to 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:25.520 do one specific task like, for example, picking apples from 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:28.840 a table and putting it into a bowl, that has 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:32.960 already reached the level of which those humanoids could be deployed. 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:37.480 Where we are in transition is that you want a 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:41.200 humanoid to do a variety of tasks and recognize when 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:45.040 those tasks are appearing. It's sort of what's called end 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:47.720 to end AI. So you do one task like picking 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:49.760 up the apple and putting it in the bowl, then 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:52.120 you pick up the orange and peel it, and you 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:56.760 go through a series of various different tasks. Now that 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:59.640 at the moment is where I would say the limiting 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:05.000 fact is in deploying very commercial humanoids, because quite clearly 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:07.680 you don't want the humanoid just to move around this 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:10.360 room and move the microphone and then just go back 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:13.960 into it one position. So the issue at the moment 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:17.160 is really to adapt the AI so that it can 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:19.800 do multitasks, multifunction and kind. 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:21.160 Of think for themselves in a way. 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:24.360 Yes, recognize that you've put some apples on the table 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:27.320 and they go into one area that you need the 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:29.000 oranges to be put in the fridge. 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:31.440 Done with the dog in a fridge, that's correct. 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:37.560 So the multitasking is where the commercial benefits from the 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:42.960 humanoid come through. And if you look further down in 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:49.439 terms of deployment, there are enormous productivity benefits from humanoid 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:53.320 being deployed. Go back to your example of picking a fruit. 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:57.120 In the agricultural industry, you have a lot of opportunities 0:08:57.120 --> 0:09:01.560 for picking grapes, pricking vegetables that are tasks that are 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:06.559 actually quite repetitive and very onerous. Similarly, in the construction 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:09.240 industry you have a lot of repetitive tasks and then 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:13.079 people have a lot of downtime as well. So if 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:17.000 you look at sectors where traditionally it's been very hard 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:21.000 to make productivity gains would include in the medical industry 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:26.440 as well, moving patients. The humanoids would be very very 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:30.520 adaptable and very easily to be brought into those industries 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:34.440 and function very very critically in terms of being able 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:38.840 to produce the apples or move the patient or mix 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:42.520 the cement. So we're at a point now where they 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:46.080 demand for those type of humanoids is immense in the system, 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:51.920 and that this maneuverability with the human skeleton or you 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:57.400 have dexterity pattern recognition and maneuverability in terms of the 0:09:57.440 --> 0:09:59.600 location where the humanoid can be put. 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:03.920 Is that because we talked about a couple use cases there, right, 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:06.959 you know, so we talked about warehousing and sort of 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:10.000 the back end manufacturing as well. There's sort of the 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:13.800 consumer facing robot humanoid that could be in place. There's 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:17.360 also the military capabilities, and then there's also I think 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:21.000 the healthcare industry, right, so you mentioned transporting people. It 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:23.439 could also be for you know, the elderly, like taking 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:26.079 care of people in their home, especially with the cost 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:29.439 of care. Right now, which of those do you think 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:31.800 will be the biggest areas for application? 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:36.160 So I would sort of put the military uses and 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:40.600 industrial uses quite close together, because there are a lot 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:43.600 of areas of industry and the military which are recognized 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:46.760 as being very dangerous for humans. For example, in the 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:51.120 mining industry, going into areas which have perhaps been blasted 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:55.360 or where there's a need for a visual inspection. The 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:58.400 human always would have that ability to maneuver and to enter. 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:01.840 You could also look at areas, for example, where you 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:05.920 have had radioactive leaks or gas leaks, where again you 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:10.920 need to implement emergency services very quickly. I would almost 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:14.160 say the military uses come to some extent or evolved 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.079 actually from these other areas, because it's actually a more 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:21.720 natural progression again rescuing people from buildings that are maybe 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:24.840 in a dangerous position. I guess what I would say 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:29.320 is that the limiting factors are really going to come 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:33.800 down to very usual problems which are being presented with 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:39.359 themselves as battery life, and again the capability or maintenance 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:42.680 of the robots themselves. How long can they do these 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:47.040 tasks without necessarily needing downtime. It'd be nice to have 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:49.240 someone in the field doing for twenty four hours, seven 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:51.640 days a week picking fruit, but the reality is those 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:55.240 robots themselves will need a certain amount of maintenance. So 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:58.120 to answer your question is that I think you go 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:03.079 through various evolutions, and that again the cost progression drops 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:07.479 consistently as you go further and further down the various evolutions. 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:10.440 You talked about the cost reduction, how much is it 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:13.200 right now to buy a humanoid robot? 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:17.120 Well, let's let's make two comparisons or three comparisons. Really, 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:20.640 if you looked at an industrial robot that was being 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:23.960 advertised maybe ten years ago, so your traditional one that 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:28.160 helps to assemble cars, that price of a industrial robot 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:30.840 has dropped by more than sort of sixty five seventy 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:35.440 percent for some of them. So again, there's been such 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:39.640 a large production of these items that the pricing points 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:44.400 have come down. Looking at the amount of competition for humanoids, 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:48.920 I would imagine for very traditional roles such as just 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:52.760 moving stuff around a room and so forth, looking at 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:56.160 some of the quotes out there, you could see again 0:12:56.200 --> 0:13:01.920 price deflation coming through by twenty thirty percent. And the 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:04.760 reason I say that is because the numbers of units 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:08.520 being produced this year are around about one thousand for 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:11.760 the I would say for the top ten Chinese makers. 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:15.360 But you know, looking out to twenty twenty six, as 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:18.360 you start to involve the production processes, I mean we 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:21.520 could be seeing price drops that are much much deeper 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:24.480 than that. Again, I come back to the point that 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:27.960 in terms of the costing twelve to eighty months ago, 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:30.800 they never thought they could get that AI is as 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:34.840 cheap and as abundant when they thought about what the 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:39.040 price point was. One other thing on pricing is that 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:42.480 the advantage you gain for some of the assemblers is 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:46.559 it's coming from an existing production line for the auto companies. 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:49.960 So we've spent some time looking at where the price 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:52.160 pressures are going to be less in terms of building 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:56.760 a humanoid, and that's in the road tree and the actuators. 0:13:56.800 --> 0:13:59.640 So when I extend my hand, it doesn't go right 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:02.440 through that window. There's an ability for me to control 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:07.040 that movement. Now, that segment of a robot was a 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:10.760 very particular niche of engineering, and again just four or 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:13.200 five players in that area, so they can keep the 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:17.360 pricing quite well controlled. So I think to answer your 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:20.920 question is that the prices look relatively static at the moment. 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:23.760 Units like Optimus are being sort of highlighted at around 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:26.720 twenty thousand dollars. But I would say to you, look 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:30.400 at what's happened to the evs B BYD. They're almost 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:34.320 halving now, and I would say that that's probably where 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:36.360 we go in two to three years time with some 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:39.360 of the humanoids, that they will appear to have been 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.960 halved from the price levels being offered at the moment, so. 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:46.400 Sort of somewhere between the cost of like a fridge 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:47.920 and a car right now. 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:50.640 Yeah, I would say almost getting to the price of 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:55.160 an electric vehicle. I think your opening remarks were very precient, 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:59.400 which is nobody could imagine that, first of all, you 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:03.000 could produce humanoid but at the cost levels that could 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:08.080 be adopted so quickly. And again I point out that ironically, 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:11.320 the auto industry was in the lead of this, but 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:14.440 other players have come in because they've had various aspects 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:18.920 that they themselves are sort of masters of. Yeah, I 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:22.640 think the auto industry did the humanoids a great favor 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:25.880 by being able to produce a lot of the items 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:29.240 and have a lot of the products like the batteries, 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:32.800 the sensors all in place, so it didn't take as 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:35.840 long to bring them humanoids into the mainstream. 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:39.960 So Sean, which countries dominate this industry, is this going 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:43.240 to be another example of the US and China battling 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:43.920 it out? 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:48.000 So it's a good question. I think at the moment 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:51.240 to make like for like comparisons is a little bit 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:55.760 difficult because many of the US players in this industry 0:15:56.240 --> 0:16:01.600 are either privately owned or they themselves are part of 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:05.240 a technology company. And I would say, Navidia's there. You 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:10.400 mentioned Amazon, which you could, having looked at those companies 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:14.320 past track records, deploy a lot of capital very quickly 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:18.320 into those areas to bring those humanoids in. Where I 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:22.440 sense that the momentum is with is probably with China 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:25.760 at the moment. There are two reasons for that. One 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:29.200 is that the output of industrial robots, which is your 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:33.400 cash cow, is growing absolutely astonishing. I think the latest 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:36.920 numbers for output of industrial robots in China, I think 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:39.880 for May or for April, was something like fifty percent 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:43.600 year on year. These are extraordinary numbers, so you can 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:48.440 imagine those companies are extremely cash rich now and again 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:51.200 have squeezed out other players. So the first thing is 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:54.480 that they've got cash cows. And the second is that 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:59.560 China itself perhaps felt that it would never be able 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:02.800 to access the AI as cheaply as deep Seek and 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:05.679 so forth. So again there's been a bit of a 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.680 huge shift in terms of their ability now to absorb 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:12.439 that and to adapt it as well. So I think 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:16.080 the way to answer the question is that the US 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:18.000 has a big play in this from a lot of 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:22.840 the well known technology franchises. China's probably got the momentum 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:28.080 behind it, and also the sheer number of different companies 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:31.280 that have already entered that space. What I would say 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:33.239 to you is that it's going to look like the 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:37.239 EV industry in about eighteen to twenty four months. 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:40.159 Because China has over one hundred EV companies, so you 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:43.919 think there's going to be over competition in the humanoid space. 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:46.080 So when we did our we went through some of 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:49.760 the listed and private companies in China which have some 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:54.199 form of a humanoid business. We've got to about a 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:58.119 list of about twenty to twenty five already, and those 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:01.320 companies now are coming to the market to raise money 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:04.760 for the sort of you know, evolution of the production process. 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:08.640 So on that basis, I guess one thing to say 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:12.120 about China is that this has been also part of 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:15.200 the made in China theme Made in China twenty twenty five. 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:19.240 What we're seeing is the results of that investment being 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:23.120 put in place nearly ten years ago, and those companies 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:27.000 that themselves having worked through and grown into businesses which 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:30.720 again was not thought about some eight ten years ago. 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:35.560 I'm really curious about the economic implications you know, we 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:39.000 talked about commercial applicability, but you know, this is part 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:42.520 of the automation trend and automation of the labor force, 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:46.240 and especially for the lower skilled kind of lower paid 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:50.000 work or what we call what economists call lower scaled work, 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:53.720 which has to be lower paid. You know, if robotics 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:56.000 are able to take away those jobs or sort of 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:58.160 that skills gap. 0:18:58.000 --> 0:18:59.399 Then that enters the labor force. 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:02.560 So there are range of predictions, but essentially we should 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:06.400 expect the unemployment rate to tick up somewhat unless there's 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:08.240 like retraining program or something. But how do you think 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:11.080 of that the economic implications, the libermarket implications. 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:14.359 So that's a very good question. I look at it 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:18.120 in two ways. As a service user, so you could 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:22.159 argue with the robotaxis that you lose the driver, but 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:25.600 the cost experience is much much lower from moving. 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:25.760 A to B. 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:30.400 I would say for the industries that I've mentioned earlier, 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:35.760 the productivity benefits are huge. So for the corporates, they 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:38.960 go through a dropping the cost curve that is almost 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:42.720 a demand side shock that they can find themselves making 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:45.280 a much larger share of profits than they would have 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:50.080 done from the employee side. I think there's two or 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:53.480 three things that I would say. One is that many 0:19:53.520 --> 0:20:00.720 of those jobs are either dangerous or have physical demands 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:04.920 which are not necessarily ones that a human being could 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:09.359 repeat through their lifetime. So picking grapes going through into 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:15.080 areas like minds, so it removes some job specifications which 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:18.919 shouldn't really be used by humans at all. In that spirit. 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:24.120 On the other side, one area that I think there 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.960 has been resistance to has been in the medical industry 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:33.200 because the ability for the humanoids not to be able 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:39.520 to precisely do movements almost as to the tolerance levels 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:43.200 you would see in building a car, means that surgeons 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:47.320 and doctors would find themselves not able to even anywhere 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:51.920 close to being able to replicate that themselves. Now as 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:55.920 a service user. That means that medical costs drop very sharply, 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:59.240 which is a huge overhang for the global economy in 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:03.439 the developed world, but certainly for wages of doctors and surgeons, 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:07.040 it means a very very different transition. So again, I 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:10.000 think the way I would say to you is that 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:14.200 most industries have gone through similar evolutions. If you look 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:17.040 at a Boeing seven four seven, it used to have 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:20.120 about six or so people in the cockpit. We're down 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:23.080 to about two or three. Now planes can almost take 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:25.879 off for themselves, apart from landing and taking off. So 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:28.639 I think what's going to happen with the humanoids is 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:32.040 that it's going to mean that a lot of those 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:37.000 low wage, low skilled jobs are taken out from the economy. 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:40.840 I mean, when I was young, I packed shelves in 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:44.119 a store and it was a way of me garnering 0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:47.760 some wages. When my master I was at university, those 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:52.240 jobs will essentially go. So maybe I'll have to work 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:54.760 in a student union bar or something like that, or 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:59.120 you know, do a variety of other tasks. I think 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:02.000 that's just going to be the nature of the evolution, really, 0:22:02.480 --> 0:22:05.919 but I would see it as being very very deflationary. 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:10.040 All other things being equal, those areas where there's been 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:16.080 very poor productivity would really really see, you know, extraordinary drops. Again, 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:18.520 you could have figured on a lot of people who 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:21.880 would never go and have surgery. Costs would be prohibitive 0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:22.640 being able. 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:25.119 To access that as long as the company. 0:22:24.800 --> 0:22:30.320 Is Yeah, I mean, I think the way I would 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:33.600 look at it is that this is the reason we 0:22:33.640 --> 0:22:37.000 have very cheap cars is because of the industrial robots. 0:22:37.400 --> 0:22:40.159 The reason we will have very cheap service prices is 0:22:40.200 --> 0:22:41.720 because of the humanoids. 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:44.560 Sure, you know, just getting back to your point of view, 0:22:44.600 --> 0:22:48.680 potentially working at a bar, I think you're safe, robot. 0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:53.520 I was a pretty bad bartender, so't I'm not going 0:22:53.560 --> 0:22:59.080 back into that industry. But I feel that the good 0:22:59.160 --> 0:23:02.840 thing about these areas is that it shows that there 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:08.640 are applications for AI and that the open source architecture 0:23:08.720 --> 0:23:11.080 that's brought this into the mainstream is going to have 0:23:11.119 --> 0:23:13.480 a lot of benefits for society. I know there'll be 0:23:13.560 --> 0:23:16.840 some military uses, but it is really going to be 0:23:16.960 --> 0:23:22.480 a huge driver in lowering costs, and the EV industry 0:23:22.560 --> 0:23:25.560 has been a good example of that, where a large 0:23:25.640 --> 0:23:29.359 number of players force costs so low that we go 0:23:29.480 --> 0:23:32.480 through an electrification process, which in turn does a lot 0:23:32.480 --> 0:23:35.280 of good for the planet. So there's a bigger, wider 0:23:35.320 --> 0:23:38.320 holistic theme about this as well. 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:40.399 Perhaps that's a good note to end it on on 0:23:40.440 --> 0:23:41.880 a very optimistic note. 0:23:42.359 --> 0:23:44.679 Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you 0:23:44.800 --> 0:23:45.240 very much. 0:23:46.840 --> 0:23:50.000 You've been listening to Asia Centric from Bloomberg Intelligence. I'm 0:23:50.040 --> 0:23:52.080 Katudmitreva on Hong Kong, and. 0:23:51.960 --> 0:23:54.520 I'm joenerally also in Hong Kong. You can listen to 0:23:54.560 --> 0:23:58.240 all our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you 0:23:58.359 --> 0:24:01.919 listen and this podcast was produced and edited by Clara Chan. 0:24:02.320 --> 0:24:03.000 Thanks for listening.