FCC bans import of robots, inverters*
*But the exemptions have already begun, undermining impact
While the White House was considering controls on Chinese open-weights AI models, and an open letter was pleading against this, the administration went ahead and banned foreign imports in a category with fewer domestic dependents: humanoid and quadruped robots.
The Associated Press and others reported this morning that the ban, which comes via the Federal Communications Commission, is being made on national security grounds — to “secure America’s critical supply chain,” according to FCC chair Brendan Carr.
The ban notably and unrelatedly extends to the import of power inverters, which in the short term could theoretically be a much bigger deal than the robot ban. Inverters are the devices that convert DC power to AC. Energy sources like solar panels typically output DC, but to transmit this over the power grid usually requires conversion to AC. Data center projects are among the major consumers of imported inverters, in part because so many projects are now generating at least some of their own electricity, on site or in partnership with regional providers.
Will this ban make inverter shortages more of a bottleneck to data center projects than they already are? I doubt it. There’s already an exemption for sales of Chinese inverter designs previously approved by the U.S. And for many projects, inverters are probably far less of an obstacle than permitting and local opposition.
Because global sales of humanoid robots are still tiny, the robot part of the ban will take a while to bite — to the point where I’m not sure if it will matter at all. If humanoid robots become economically potent in the next few years, then the AIs driving them could be on track to leapfrog over the need for them entirely, perhaps with more exotic technologies like nanotech.
But if our world isn’t completely upside-down in 5-10 years, the ban could prove to have been a boon to U.S.-based robot makers like Tesla, Figure AI, and Boston Dynamics. My money’s against that, though: Domestically building up the supply chain that has helped make China a leader in robotics can’t happen overnight, and it won’t happen if manufacturers doubt the ban will stay in place long enough — without further exemptions and carve-outs — to justify the investment.
The analyses and opinions expressed on AI StopWatch reflect the views of the individual contributors and the sources they cover, and should not be taken as official positions of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute.