Opinion: That backflipping robot is just a US$1bil party trick

SoftBank Robotics’s Pepper at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, in 2017. The sheer uselessness of Pepper, which was introduced in 2014, was a clear hint of the limited utility of machines made to mimic humans. — AFP

It’s impressive that a humanoid machine can propel itself into the air, invert and spin 360°, landing back where it started. Heck, most humans can’t even do that – but then most don’t need to, either. And that’s just the problem for Boston Dynamics Inc.

Beyond wowing people for entertainment, there isn’t a big market for robots that can perform the athletic feats of sentient beings. They make for viral YouTube videos and not much more.