Why we’re obsessed with humanoid robots?

Do androids dream of electric sheep? Well, humans certainly dream of electric people.

Following Elon Musk’s recent prophetic statement that humanoid robots are going to be the world’s next best product and the innovations in robotics that we’ve seen at CES 2025, it got us here at Cybernews thinking – why are people so obsessed with humanoid robots?

This concept of a mechanical thing made up of cogs, bolts, and metal, yet looks almost exactly like us, isn’t new.

The Ancient Greeks dreamed of Talos, a bronze giant, Leo da Vinci built a mechanical knight, and the first emperor of China was buried with an army of terracotta soldiers.

But it was only in the 20th century when a Czech writer called Karel Čapek first brought the term “robot” into collective consciousness.

TV and movies followed where we saw humanoid robots become our companions and media where they even take over the world.

Now, humanoid robots aren’t simply conceptual – they’re tangible. Innovators like Boston Dynamics, UniTree, Tesla, and a plethora of other tech companies have made robots a reality.

If this idea of a being that wears a human face but is not human has been around for centuries, why are people so obsessed with humanoid robots?

So what, you’ve seen a quadruped robot back flip, yeah it's cool, but does that really call for all this hype?

Maybe it does, as the process of emulating all elements of our physicality and immortalizing it in aluminum or titanium isn’t easy.

There’s much complexity in the creation of humanoid robots. It’s a facet of technological innovation that warrants awe and admiration – here’s why.

They’re not easy to make

As I said before, emulating human physicality is a tough task, requiring various systems and advanced technologies to make it feasible.

In our latest Cybernews YouTube explainer, “Why are people so obsessed with robots?” we spoke to some experts about what makes humanoid robots tick.

Adnan Masood, chief architect of AI and machine learning at UST, explained why crafting a functioning humanoid robot is a tricky task.

“If you want human-like movement, you must have smooth human-like movement, which is more complex than a linear movement. Linear movement or rotational movement in functional robots is very different than human-like movement.”

Masood explained that robots also have multiple subsystems like motor control, decision-making control, and perception control, which makes the task of creating a functioning humanoid robot all the more challenging.

They’re good at doing dangerous jobs

Perhaps we have this romanticized idea that robots will take over the menial tasks we hate doing so we can get on with doing things that we really care about.

Well, in the context of physical, highly dangerous jobs, or even repetitive strenuous tasks, robots could take over the heavy lifting.

“One of the biggest use cases that I found to be very valuable is training and simulation. So training and simulation, if you can create realistic training scenarios for human workers in an industrial setting to train people on an oil rig in the ocean or drilling in a mine, or something, which is really dangerous. That’s a really powerful use case,” said Masood.

Another reason why people are exceptionally interested in humanoid robots is the ability to collaborate, interact, and work alongside them.

Robots could make our lives easier by doing repetitive heavy lifting of boxes, pieces of machinery or other materials – reducing the risk of injury and even death.

They can teach AI more about the world

In our explainer, we spoke to the chief technology officer (CTO)at SmythOS, Alexander de Ridder about what it’ll take for companies to reach artificial general intelligence (AGI).

“Let's say that a company declares that in 2025, we will very likely have achieved AGI, right? Then it would be the equivalent of an AGI of a human being who never was allowed to leave their house,” said de Ridder.

The CTO used an example of Rapunzel being locked inside her tower; she can learn all she wants from data and books, but it's not until she is set free from the shackles of her brick prison that she is allowed to truly understand the mechanics of the world.

“In other words, it may be essential to achieve an AGI that we feel as humans is true AGI because a human that never left his house in his whole life would have a severely limited understanding of the world, no matter how smart he or she is. And can you truly call it an AGI if it did not have the human experience?” de Ridder explained.

There is far more than just feeding information to the machine, if we want artificial intelligence to be as intelligent as we are, or more, having robots that can interact with the world is potentially the only way to solve the AGI problem.

Robots could potentially “unlock a new data frontier for these AI models to become more aware of the human condition and the human experience,” concludes de Ridder.

While the androids that we have now aren’t the ones we dreamed of, and our fantasies will almost always be better than reality, humanoid robots show a lot of potential.

If innovators like Musk believe that there will be more robots than people in the world by 2024, there must be a good reason for this.

While androids aren’t there yet, they’re certainly making progress, and if innovators are shouting about the benefits of humanoid robots – perhaps we should listen.

Make sure to check out our latest Cybernews explainer, where we speak to experts about peoples obsession with humanoid robots, their limitations, and their potential.