Social media has reacted with awe (and fear) to a video clip of the world’s first-ever bipedal, musculoskeletal android – shown writhing around midair with its creepy human-like body, hung like a puppet from above.
The clip, recorded on January 15th, was posted by its creator, the musculoskeletal, superintelligent android-maker Clone Robotics, and has been making its way around the interwebs since Wednesday.
“Pretty cool and nightmare fuel at the same time,” said Prosthetic Technician and Orthotic Fitter Ahmad N., summing up the overall web reaction to the 40-second clip on LinkedIn.
The Poland-based company calls its latest “Protoclone… a faceless, anatomically accurate synthetic human with over 200 degrees of freedom, over 1,000 Myofibers, and 500 sensors.”
But be forewarned, “You can stab it with a fork and it will bleed out,” Clone CEO and co-founder Dhanush Radhakrishna said about the surreal-looking cybernetic intelligent specimen. Yikes, that’s not disturbing.
Get your own Protoclone!
The latest Protoclone is a far cry from a February 2023 announcement made by the automation machinery manufacturing firm that it would be attempting to make synthetic humans, starting with a “1:1 copy of the human hand.”
Even more “impressive,” “so amazing,” and “just out of sci-fi,” as other LinkedIn users claimed, is that barely two years later, Clone Robotics appears to be offering up a 2025 Alpha Edition version of the android – 279 of them to be exact – for those enthusiasts willing to fork over an undisclosed sum to reserve one.
“There is no greater satisfaction in life than having a dream and making it come true,” Radhakrishna posted on X under his "Necromancer" moniker, along with a still of the semi-translucent android.
Calling his team “the most creative, relentless, and devoted group of scientists, engineers, and artists” he’s ever encountered, the CEO also put out the word on Friday that the company is looking to beef up its staff.
“This is a team of absolute wizards on the adventure of a lifetime together! Apply to work at Clone and become a pioneer of androids!” Radhakrishna said, comparing a future offer letter from Clone to receiving an acceptance letter from Harry Potter’s Hogwarts.
The Clone team is the most creative, relentless, and devoted group of scientists, engineers, and artists I’ve ever encountered. This is a team of absolute wizards on the adventure of a lifetime together!
undefined Necromancer (@dhanushisrad) February 21, 2025
The Alpha edition clone is said to walk naturally, have a natural language interface in English, and boasts not only its own synthetic muscular system with human-level strength – but also its own skeletal, nervous, and vascular systems.
With the tagline, “Do it yourself once. Clone will do it forever,” Clone Alpha is also said to have been pre-installed with a plethora of skills to help the average human exceed with daily, around-the-home tasks.
Some benign and some wild; here are a few examples if Alpha's capabilities:
- Memorizes your clean home layout and kitchen inventory
- Capable of witty dialogue and shakes hands with your friends
- Pours drinks for you and makes you sandwiches
- Washes, dries, and folds your clothes
- Vacuums your floors, loads and unloads the dishwasher, turns the lights on and off
- Holds and retrieves items for you
In addition to being able to follow its owner around and charge itself, the android is “equipped with a Telekinesis training platform” that allows the user to teach the Clone Alpha new skills.
Human-like synthetic organ systems
Said to be as soft as a plush animal, the android’s muscular system is made of a “revolutionary artificial muscle technology, Mylofiber,” created by Clone Robtocs in 2021. Mylofiber is the only “artificial muscle in the world capable of achieving such a combination of weight, power density, speed, force-to-weight, and energy efficiency.” the company said.
Its skeletal system is made up of 206 bones found in the human body (made from cheap and durable polymers) with fully articulated joints, artificial ligaments, and connective tissue.
Clone’s website says the prototype's nervous system “was designed for instantaneous neural control of the valves, and thereby the muscles, with only proprioceptive and visual feedback,” while its vascular system was designed to be “the most sophisticated hydraulic powering system” in existence and able to power the android’s entire muscular system, making it a cleaner technology.
Although some on social media wanted to know how much it would cost to reserve one of the Alphas, others were terrified at the thought of seeing the realistic clone walking around their homes at night.
“Promise me you don't make a cowboy-themed amusement park with them. Because that never ends well.” one user posted on X, referring to HBO’s popular show Westworld.
‘One man’s nightmare is another man’s dream,” posted another.
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