In the first round of human vs. humanoid, the human emerged victorious — barely.
For nearly a week, the $39 billion robotics startup Figure AI has been livestreaming its robots placing packages barcode-side down on a conveyor belt at its San Jose headquarters. Millions have tuned in to watch the strangely compelling display of robotic drudgery.
This weekend, Figure raised the stakes. The company brought in an intern to compete against one of its robots in a 10-hour package-sorting contest. The intern, Aimé Gérard, works as a visualization specialist, according to LinkedIn.
Gérard had the upper hand until biology took over. Around the five-hour mark, he stepped away for a bathroom break, and the humanoid pulled ahead. Under California labor law, Gérard was entitled to meal and paid rest breaks.
Gérard bounced back, despite the disadvantage of being human. After 10 hours of grueling work that apparently left the intern with blisters, he sorted 12,924 packages — 192 more than his robot rival. Gérard averaged 2.79 seconds per package; the humanoid averaged 2.83.
“This is the last time a human will ever win,” Figure AI founder and CEO Brett Adcock wrote on X.
A coterie of humanoid robots has been sorting packages on a looped conveyor belt at Figure’s headquarters since last Wednesday. The exercise aims to show potential customers that Figure AI’s humanoids can work reliably for long stretches, including 24-hour shifts, Figure AI investor and board member Jesse Coors-Blankenship told Business Insider last week.
Figure AI first set out last Wednesday to have its humanoids complete an eight-hour stretch of autonomous labor. One robot sorted packages while two others stood on chargers in the background, ready to sub in when their colleague needed to power up. By the end of the first eight hours, the livestream had drawn more than 1.5 million views on X, and viewers had named the robots Bob, Frank, and Gary.
Twenty-four hours later, the humanoids had sorted more than 30,000 packages and attracted more than 3 million cumulative views on X. The livestream is still going six days later.
Adcock has said the livestream will continue until the robots fail. Viewers have called the feed “surprisingly addicting” and “robotic ASMR,” and Figure has even started selling merch of its package-sorting humanoids.
Figure has previously shared a video of its humanoids doing chores, such as making a bed.
The robots’ ability to operate for so long without failure was impressive, though the technology is not ready for deployment because of accuracy issues, said roboticist Ayanna Howard, dean of Ohio State University’s College of Engineering. These issues include packages placed barcode-side up and packages occasionally being knocked off the belt.
“We’re a long way away from a fully autonomous humanoid in a logistics center,” said Howard.
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