• by Joe Mandese , Yesterday

Over the past 18 months I've written more about bots than I have in the past 18 years, but almost all of it has been about the software kind -- not the humanoid ones that after years of science fiction -- are becoming a marketplace reality. That said, I was a little surprised this morning to receive an equity researcher's note in my inbox entitled "The Robots Are Coming..."

The note, from the securities analysts at Raymond James, focuses mostly on the rapid deployment of non-humanoid robots -- mainly sidewalk, pathway and drone delivery bots -- but it was nonetheless striking to see a column devoted to humanoid ones being developed by companies such as Agility, Apptronik, BostonDynamics, Figure, Naver, Unitree, and of course, Tesla.

"While we see opportunity for [humanoids] to tackle more complex interior navigation (i.e., apartment complexes, office buildings, etc.), we have yet to see specific proof points for NT deployment and focus our analysis on commercialized robotics," the Raymond James analysts note, excluding humanoids from their marketplace projections, at least for now.

Meanwhile, Tesla at least has begun mobilizing its humanoid Optimus robots to get out the vote. No, not Tuesday's U.S. election vote, but Thursday's Tesla shareholder vote. Tesla CEO Elon Musk no doubt utilized his humanoids to explain the shareholder voting process to human shareholders partly tongue-in-cheek, but the truth is he also believes humanoid bots will one day be as big a mass market as Tesla cars are -- maybe bigger.

During his 2024 keynote conversation with former WPP CEO Mark Read at the Cannes Lions festival, Musk described a not-too-distant future marketplace in which most American households will have an Optimus robot -- maybe two or three -- to help with previously their manual tasks. Musk said advances in robotics, as well as AI, would create so much productivity that humans would no longer need to work and would instead receive not just universal basic incomes, but "universal high incomes," though he didn't provide details on how exactly that would work.

In fact, a key provision of this week's shareholder vote -- the one Optimus explains in the video above -- is his new trillion dollar compensation package, which is tied to a plan to deploy 1 million Optimus robots over the next decade.

“My fundamental concern with regard to how much voting control I have at Tesla is, if I go ahead and build this enormous robot army, can I just be ousted at some point in the future?," Musk told investors during a recent call reported by Wired magazine, adding, "If we build this robot army, do I have at least a strong influence over this robot army? Not control, but a strong influence... I don't feel comfortable building that robot army unless I have a strong influence.”

All that makes me wonder why, as American humans vote this week, there are no ballot initiatives for regulating a future in which a trillionaire has a strong influence over a private robot army.

Then again, we all have more pressing existential threats at hand, so as Optimus might say, "Get out and vote."