“The ChatGPT moment for general robotics is just around the corner,” Nvidia’s Jensen Huang said in January last year. This January he said the ChatGPT moment for physical AI was “nearly here”. ChatGPT was the fastest-growing consumer app in history, according to a report from UBS, reaching 100mn monthly active users within two months of launch. If that sort of explosive adoption is what Huang meant by a “ChatGPT moment” then I think we have much longer to wait. There have, of course, been advances in the deployment of robotics over the past year, not least the steady and impressive progress of self-driving cars. But there have also been some retreats. US supermarket chain Kroger, for example, announced in November it would close three of its eight robotic warehouses, which pick and dispatch orders to customers.

Full opinion : The eureka moment for robotics and humanoids may be far far away.