AIhub coffee corner: Are humanoids the future of embodied AI?

AIhub coffee corner: Are humanoids the future of embodied AI? This month we ask whether humanoids are the future of robotics. How has the technology evolved recently, and what can we expect in the years to come? Joining the conversation this time are: Joydeep Biswas (University of Texas at Austin), Sanmay Das (Virginia Tech), Rina Dechter (University of California, Irvine), Ioannis Erripis (AIhub), Sabine Hauert (University of Bristol), Ella Scallan (AIhub), and Marija Slavkovik (University of Bergen). There have been huge advancements in humanoid robots over the past couple of years. Today's topic is particularly timely, as RoboCup 2026 recently took place. I thought it would be interesting to start with an overview of recent developments at RoboCup. This all started snowballing a couple of years ago, and we suddenly started to see this huge inflection on the capabilities. New humanoid robots were showing up at RoboCup that didn't fall down as much. Suddenly we were able to deploy robots without humans following them around. I want to highlight that this is not just one key technical innovation, it required the confluence of a wide number of things: much better hardware, significant advances in algorithms, and advances in how we train and learn. Once upon a time, humanoid robots required classical control. However, most modern humanoid robots are using learned controllers for walking.