Because the capability and the capacity of a workforce and an army overlap almost completely, the very same general-purpose machine that performs economic labor can be easily re-tasked for security and military roles. Any nation that fields enough robots to run its economy thereby possesses, in effect, a standing robotic force of unprecedented size.

A humanoid robot is re-skilled by a software update, not by years of training. The robot stocking a warehouse today can, with new software and the right equipment, perform perimeter security, surveillance, logistics, or combat support tomorrow. There is no recruitment drive, no boot camp, and no mobilization lag. A workforce that can pivot roles in an afternoon is, by definition, a reserve that can pivot to security and military roles in an afternoon.

To run a modern economy you deploy robots in the millions or tens of millions. That immense installed base is itself a latent force larger than any human army ever assembled, already mobile, dexterous, networked, and distributed across the entire country. There is no need to raise a separate army, because the workforce is the reserve.

Furthermore, history makes this plain that manufacturing capacity is military capacity. In the Second World War, civilian automobile plants were rapidly converted to building tanks and aircraft, turning industrial capacity into the so-called arsenal of democracy. The capacity to mass-produce robots for the economy is the same capacity to mass-produce them for war, and because robots can build robots, a nation can scale a robot army as fast as it can scale its robot workforce.

Most compellingly, a robotic force can be risked without risking citizens' lives, which lowers the political threshold for using force and makes the option more tempting and ultimately more destabilizing.

This is already happening, and largely by adapting commercial machines. Militaries around the world are weaponizing the same kinds of quadruped and humanoid robots being developed for civilian use, and the line between a commercial unit and a military one is increasingly just software and a payload. That is exactly what dual-use means in practice.

The upshot is that the disruption of labor and national security become inseparable. The nations that lead in robotic labor automatically lead in robotic military potential, which creates powerful arms-race pressure and is one more reason no nation can simply opt out. To be precise about the claim, "army" here means the capacity for one. A worker-robot is not literally a soldier the instant it rolls off the line, and combat use still requires weaponization, hardening, secure command-and-control, and it raises grave legal and ethical questions about lethal autonomy, hacking, authoritarian misuse, and the seizure of privately owned robots. But the speed, low cost, and ease of converting a workforce into a fighting force is the heart of the concern, and it is precisely why control and governance safeguards need to be designed in from the very beginning rather than bolted on later.

Explore the evidence...

• This is the uncomfortable implication at the center of our short on the topic. We are not only building robot employees, we are building a workforce that can pivot roles instantly, including into security and military roles. Watch Robot Workers… or Robot Soldiers? here.

• The dual-use nature of humanoid robots and its national-security consequences are addressed directly in our insights into humanoid robotics, including why a nation's robot workforce is also, in effect, its robot army, and why this drives competition no country can ignore. Read the insights here.
• The conversion is already underway using commercial-grade machines. As Military.com reported, the US Marine Corps has tested robotic quadrupeds fitted with remote weapon systems and an anti-tank rocket launcher, while China's military debuted a rifle-armed robot dog during a 2024 exercise in Cambodia. Tellingly, commercial quadrupeds from robotics makers such as Unitree have been modified for military use by several armies, even though the company says the modifications are unauthorized and that it does not support lethal use, which shows how thin the line between a commercial robot and a weapon really is. Read the Military.com report here and further coverage here.
• The governance questions that follow, including who can commandeer robots, whether they should ever use lethal force, and how to secure them against hijacking, are explored in our blog on teleoperation. Read Teleoperation: The Future of Humanoid Robotics? here.

Witness the transformation

In the span of just fifteen years, the working horse went from providing the vast majority of road travel to a tiny fraction of it. The automobile had arrived, and the fate of the horse was sealed. We are now on the cusp of a disruption every bit as swift and complete, except this time, we humans are the horses.

A convergence of sensors, computing, actuators, and batteries now gives humanoid robots the capability to perform both cognitive and physical work. AI is already taking on cognitive tasks once reserved for people, and humanoid robots are bringing the same capability to physical tasks. For the first time, the supply of available labor can expand as fast as machines can be built and trained. These systems are already approaching cost parity with human labor across much of the global economy, and their cost will keep falling while their capability keeps rising.

This is about far more than cheaper labor. Robots will create an entirely new and vastly larger labor system in which the marginal cost of labor approaches zero. The result will be a sweeping tide of falling costs, rising quality, and explosive productivity that forms the foundation of an era of superabundance. The nations, industries, and individuals who recognize this early, and who choose to protect people rather than jobs, will be best positioned to navigate the transformation and capture its extraordinary benefits.

Learn more about the disruption of labor and its implications for jobs, society, and the economy.