It is a phenomenon known as the uncanny valley - if something looks human-like but not believably so, it becomes unnerving and even frightening.Īs Prof Helen Hastie says: "If it's too human-like, it will put off the human." Robots designed to work with vulnerable people, for example in care homes, might be better suited to looking a bit more human - but not too much.
"What's most important is that the robot is fit for the task it is designed for," she says.īoston Dynamics' doglike quadruped Spot is ideally suited to rough terrains, such as bombed-out buildings - but a robot designed to, say, work in a kitchen work may need no legs at all. Humanoids might be expected to function like people, performing a variety of different tasks - mowing the lawn, making a sandwich, cuddling a baby.īut Prof Helen Hastie, of the National Robotarium, in Edinburgh, says robots are a very long way off being able to multi-task. Precision-surgery robots, warehouse robots, window-cleaning robots - none of them is remotely humanoid. Time and time again though, the most impressive performers tend not to look like people. The robots of 2022 are far more skilled than those I first saw, in 2008, whereas I have acquired little more than a few grey hairs. As I discovered when trying to film them, early football-playing robots could last for only 10 minutes.īut robots have advanced considerably faster than humans in the past decade. Some of them work better than others - and demonstrations rarely go to plan.īut what the sci-fi films fail to show is all the wires, the pre-programming and the very brief battery life. You name it, somebody is probably trying to build a robot for it. In my job, I have seen lots of robots - all shapes and sizes - designed to clean, care for the elderly, teach, perform surgery, work as receptionists and tour guides, play Scrabble and chess, sing and dance, mix cocktails, pack shopping, deliver groceries, have sex, perform search and rescue and build cars. "I'd put money on them having more wheel-based robots," he adds. The robotics behind Optimus look sound - Tesla is not exactly a novice at all this - but, Mr Nicholson says, by its release, the machine will have evolved into something physically more practical. The amount of work that goes into just getting a humanoid to stand upright is huge."
"But wheel-based robots and even drones are so much easier to control. "A lot of companies work in the area of humanoids because it's interesting for the public to see," Owen Nicholson, chief executive of Slamcore, which specialises in sensor-driven vision, says.
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