US robotics ambitions face data, safety and workforce tests

Boston Dynamics interim CEO Amanda McMaster is urging the U.S. to treat robotics as a national industrial priority, citing competition from China and the need to prepare workers for wider automation. In a Fortune commentary, McMaster argued that robots are moving from research labs into workplaces and could shape U.S. productivity, infrastructure and supply-chain resilience.

McMaster, who also serves as chief financial officer of Boston Dynamics, wrote that robots are already being used in settings such as warehouses, hospitals, construction sites and factories. She said the sector has grown from early prototypes into a commercial industry supported over time by engineering research, venture capital and defense funding.

Investment figures point to faster adoption, according to data McMaster cited from the Association for Advancing Automation. U.S. companies bought nearly 37,000 robot units last year, spending $2.25 billion, the group’s data showed.

McMaster also cited a Morgan Stanley forecast that the humanoid robot market could exceed $5 trillion by 2050. She argued that general-purpose robots could help companies withstand global disruptions if the U.S. can scale the technology safely and train workers alongside it.

AI is speeding robotics, but data remains a barrier

McMaster said advances in artificial intelligence are shortening development cycles for robots, allowing behaviors that once required months of programming and testing to be produced much faster. She described robots as a physical extension of AI systems, but said the field lacks the kind of broad training data that helped large language models improve.

According to McMaster, robots must learn basic physical information that humans take for granted, such as the weight of objects, the grip force needed to handle them and whether materials are fragile, rigid or flexible. She wrote that creating a large dataset for the physical world is one of the major engineering tasks facing the industry.

McMaster acknowledged concerns that robots could displace workers. She said Boston Dynamics has seen the strongest uses where robots handle dangerous, repetitive or physically difficult tasks while people move to other work.

She also argued that countries with high automation adoption have historically tended to have lower unemployment rather than higher unemployment. McMaster said worker retraining and reskilling should receive investment on a scale comparable to spending on robotics technology, with responsibility shared by companies and government.

China and safety standards are central concerns

McMaster wrote that China accounts for more than 54% of global robot deployments, making it a direct benchmark for U.S. competitiveness. She said the U.S. needs stronger domestic competition, AI investment, safety rules and a dedicated national robotics strategy.

Without such a strategy, McMaster warned that the U.S. could become reliant on foreign robotics technology, face supply-chain shocks and lose ground to China. She compared the risk to U.S. dependence concerns that have already appeared in semiconductors.

McMaster said a national plan should include incentives, workforce training, supply-chain planning and public messaging to support wider adoption. She pointed to legislation introduced earlier this year that would create a Congressional National Robotics Commission to recommend policies aimed at strengthening U.S. leadership in the field.

Safety is another condition for wider use, McMaster wrote. She said software systems need ethical limits as robots are paired more closely with large language models, while hardware needs functional safeguards to prevent injuries around people.

McMaster noted that the International Organization for Standardization is working on new safety standards for industrial robots. She said broader adoption will depend on machines that can operate reliably in unpredictable environments.

This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.