Emily's mom wants a sex robot. What's standing in her way?

What does it actually take to build a humanoid robot in America – and why can't we do it yet? Host Emily Dreyfuss's 79-year-old mother has been joking for years that she wants a robot companion, inspired by viral humanoid robot videos and Korean dramas. So Emily welcomes robotics reporter Kylie Robison to find out if that's even possible. Kylie is a host and writer at Core Memory who recently wrote an article titled, ‘This Is Why America Can’t Have Robots And Other Nice Things.’  On the show, Kylie breaks down actuators – the small motorized parts that let robots move – and explains why China dominates their global production. She and Emily then dig into two Bay Area startups, West Mag and Atlas Motion Systems, racing to bring actuator manufacturing back to the U.S., with OpenAI reportedly not too far behind. And they touch on whether NVIDIA's "physical intelligence" bet might mean humanoid robots are closer than we think. For more information and episode transcripts, visit: https://sfstandard.com/pacific-standard-time/ Support this podcast from The San Francisco Standard by becoming a subscriber: ⁠https://sfstandard.com/subscriber