Humanoid robots are a bad idea

In case you hadn’t noticed, humanoid robots have joined the workforce. 

An evergreen staple of science fiction, autonomous AI-driven machines with feet, legs that bend at the knee, torsos, arms with hands and fingers, all topped with a head are now being deployed in real workplaces. 

Specifically:

Amazon is piloting the use of Agility Robotics’ humanoid robot, Digit, in logistics operations — mainly for picking up empty bins and returning them to where they can be filled again with merchandise. 

Mercedes-Benz is collaborating with Apptronik to explore the use of the Apollo humanoid robot in manufacturing. (The robots deliver assembly kits to production lines.) 

BMW is testing Figure AI’s humanoid robot, Figure 01, at its factory in Spartanburg, SC. They’re used for moving components onto jigs and making corrections to component placements. (Figure recently unveiled its Figure 02 robot, which is even more humanoid than the first one.)

Hyundai, through its subsidiary Boston Dynamics, is working on deploying the Atlas humanoid robot in its manufacturing plants. The aim is to scale up its use for industrial applications.

Tesla developed the Optimus humanoid robot and has already deployed two of them in a factory, mainly for sorting battery cells. 

UBTECH Robotics’ Walker robot is being used in two Chinese car factories for a wide variety of repetitive manufacturing tasks, such as placing car logos on vehicles  and performing quality inspections.

For now, these robots are solutions in search of problems — or, rather, they’re being used for menial work of value nowhere near the price of the robots. But companies expect their roles to grow.

Why humanoid?

Non-humanoid robots have been used in factories for decades. Industrial robots are highly capable, and nowadays increasingly programmed with generative AI capabilities. Tesla’s factory is a marvel of robotic engineering, as you can see from this video. 

If non-humanoid robots are so capable, why would Tesla and other companies introduce human-shaped robots? 

The most common reason given for why robots should be the size, general shape and have parts designed after human body parts is that our environments, buildings and vehicles are designed for people — so basing the design of robots on the human body means they can open doors, sit in chairs, walk up stairs and generally operate in any place or situation designed for people. 

This argument sounds persuasive at first, but doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Workspaces like factories are designed for both humans and equipment. Factory floors, for example, are mainly designed for wheels — they tend to be perfectly hard, flat and smooth. A rolling robot would be far more efficient than one that requires a supercomputer to enable bipedal walking. Other robot designs can lift vastly heavier weights, move much faster and have profoundly better dexterity than humanoid robots do. 

If the main justification for humanoid robots is so they can operate in human-centric environments, then what’s the purpose of the Digit robot’s big white eyes that blink. Why do Figure and Tesla robots need heads that are almost exactly the same size and shape of human heads? Why do these robots tend to have exactly four fingers and one thumb? 

The human body and mind were designed by evolution over 2.5 million years during the Paleolithic Era, not for factory work, but for persistence hunting and general survival in the wilderness based on social cooperation, food sharing, and the use of stone tools and fire. 

Why design factory robots based on the bodies of stone age cave men?

It’s clear their designers have an unexplained desire to make robots that make people feel that they’re kind of human. To have this effect, engineers are working overtime to make robots with lifelike faces and to create generative AI personalities that appear emotionally responsive and emotionally intelligent. 

But why?

The problem with humanoid robots

Humanoid robots have a psychological effect on people that’s very different from other robots. 

When humanoid robots display human-like emotions and behaviors, people are more likely to attribute mental states to them that they don’t have. The phenomenon is called “cognitive anthropomorphism.”

Specifically, a study conducted by scientists at the University of Genova and the Italian institute of technology found that while non-humanoid robots are perceived as objects, humanoid robots are often perceived as “human-like” or “social agents” — not objects. 

When people make eye contact with other people, the act elicits a psychophysiological connection or bonding response. Research by scientists at Tampere University in Finland found that eye contact with robots elicits the same response in people. 

Yet another study conducted at IRCCS Centro Neurolesi Bonino Pulejo in Messina, Italy, found that robots programmed for “emotional intelligence” can evoke empathy in people, “especially when they exhibit anthropomorphic traits.”

And look at the crazy, unthinking claims some robot makers are saying out loud. 

Xiaolong Wang, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC San Diego involved in basically teaching humanoid robots to dance and express themselves through body language said: “Through expressive and more human-like body motions, we aim to build trust and showcase the potential for robots to co-exist in harmony with humans.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says he wants Tesla’s Optimus robot to be “good looking” and for people to think of it as a “friend” to which they “get quite attached.” (He also envisioned a future where 20 billion humanoid robots like Optimus live and work amongst humans.)

The main difference with humanoid robots is their effect on humans, not their efficiency as tools.

Humanoid robots that talk, perceive social and emotional cues, elicit empathy and trust, trigger psychological responses through eye contact and who trick us into the false belief that they have inner thoughts, intentions and even emotions create for humanity what I consider a real problem.

Our response to humanoid robots is based on delusion. Machines — tools, really — are being deliberately designed to hack our human hardwiring and deceive us into treating them as something they’re not: people.

In other words, the whole point of humanoid robots is to dupe the human mind, to mislead us into having the kind of connection with these machines formerly reserved exclusively for other human beings. 

Why are some robot makers so fixated on this outcome? Why isn’t the goal instead to create robots that are perfectly designed for their function, rather than perfectly designed to trick the human mind?

Why isn’t there a movement to make sure robots do not elicit false emotions and beliefs. What’s the harm in preserving our intuition that a robot is just a machine, just a tool? Why try to route around that intuition with machines that trick our minds, coopting or hijacking our human empathy?

What’s the motivation for wanting tools to become members of human societies and families?

My guess is that we all grew up on science fiction where android robots were commonplace, and some want to realize that vision. Or they feel humanoid robots are preordained and inevitable, so we might as well get on with it. 

My fear is that if robots are basically people, then robot makers may feel like gods in creating them.

Whatever the motivation, I don’t buy the justification that humanoid robots are needed to operate in environments designed for people. And I would call on robot engineers to re-think their impulses and examine their motivations as to why they want to build machines designed to delude.

Robots are just machines. And giving a machine two legs, 10 fingers and a face doesn’t make it a person. So why try to trick people into believing it is?