Will robots take light assembly worker jobs?

Threat timeline: Already deployed. The CRX-10iA is the kind of cobot that lets a mid-sized fabricator automate one task at a time — palletize one line, machine-tend another, inspect a third — without committing to a full integration project. Each deployment displaces 1-2 dedicated operators per shift. 1-3 years for the next wave of small-to-mid manufacturers; 3-5 years for the long tail.

Threat timeline: 5+ years for the humanoid, and that assumes end-2026 holds. Reger's own July 2026 description of 4NE-1's capability is deliberately modest: pressing buttons, turning switches, putting parts into machines, without changing anything in the environment. That is machine tending, and machine tending is already automatable with a fixed arm at a fraction of the price. The real near-term displacement from NEURA comes from the products nobody writes about — MAiRA and LARA cobots, shipping today into exactly those tasks. Treat the humanoid as a 2028-2030 question and the cobots as a now question.