Hyundai Motor Group says it will roll out human-like robots in its factories from 2028, as major companies race to use the new technology. The South Korean firm showed off Atlas, a humanoid robot developed by Boston Dynamics, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas on Monday. Hyundai says it plans to integrate Atlas across its global network, including a plant in the US state of Georgia that was involved in a massive immigration raid in 2025 . Other firms that have said they will use humanoid robots in their operations include Amazon, Tesla and Chinese car making giant BYD. The Atlas robots will gradually take on more tasks, said Hyundai.

In this work we investigate how children ages 5-12 perceive, understand, and use generative AI models such as a text-based LLMs ChatGPT and a visual-based model DALL-E. Generative AI is newly being used widely since chatGPT. Children are also building mental models of generative AI. Those haven't been studied before and it is also the case that the children's models are dynamic as they use the tools, even with just very short usage. Upon surveying and experimentally observing over 40 children ages 5-12, we found that children generally have a very positive outlook towards AI and are excited about the ways AI may benefit and aid them in their everyday lives. In a forced choice, children robustly associated AI with positive adjectives versus negative ones. We also categorize what children are querying AI models for and find that children search for more imaginative things that don't exist when using a visual-based AI and not when using a text-based one. Our follow-up study monitored children's responses and feelings towards AI before and after interacting with GenAI models. We even find that children find AI to be less scary after interacting with it. We hope that these findings will shine a light on children's mental models of AI and provide insight for how to design the best possible tools for children who will inevitably be using AI in their lifetimes. The motivation of this work is to bridge the gap between Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Psychology in an effort to study the effects of AI on society. We aim to identify the gaps in humans' mental models of what AI is and how it works. Previous work has investigated how both adults and children perceive various kinds of robots, computers, and other technological concepts. However, there is very little work investigating these concepts for generative AI models and not simply embodied robots or physical technology.

Loneliness is a distressing personal experience and a growing social issue. Social robots could alleviate the pain of loneliness, particularly for those who lack in-person interaction. This paper investigated how the effect of loneliness on the anthropomorphism of social robots differs by robot appearance, and how it influences purchase intention. Participants viewed a video of one of the three robots (machine-like, animal-like, and human-like) moving and interacting with a human counterpart. Bootstrapped multiple regression results revealed that although the unique effect of animal-likeness on anthropomorphism compared to human-likeness was higher, lonely individuals' tendency to anthropomorphize the animal-like robot was lower than that of the human-like robot. This moderating effect remained significant after covariates were included. Bootstrapped mediation analysis showed that anthropomorphism had both a positive direct effect on purchase intent and a positive indirect effect mediated by likability. Our results suggest that lonely individuals' tendency of anthropomorphizing social robots should not be summarized into one unified inclination. Moreover, by extending the effect of loneliness on anthropomorphism to likability and purchase intent, this current study explored the potential of social robots to be adopted as companions of lonely individuals in their real life. Lastly, we discuss the practical implications of the current study for designing social robots.

In September this year, Tesla presented a glimpse of their general-purpose humanoid robot'Optimus'. Unfortunately, as many humorously remarked, the launch was "suboptimal". The demo couldn't do much to excite the audience for what's coming next. However, many roboticists and experts in the field believe that if sufficient resources are thrown into it, the vision of an "all-purpose" robot is practical. I am aware of critics who say that the prototype had nothing new that they haven't seen elsewhere, and that there are other more impressive humanoids. There are also people who have doubts on the aggressive timeline Elon had proposed, and I do not necessarily disagree with them.

Tesla's CEO Elon Musk is set to unveil its prototype humanoid robots at an event on Sept. 30, hoping to expand beyond self-driving cars that have not yet become reality despite his repeated promises. While robots are widely used for specialist tasks at factories, other companies have struggled to create commercially viable human-like robots, despite decades-long development efforts. "This market is very, very challenging market because you buy this big expensive robot, but it actually cannot do much," Heni Ben Amor, a robotics professor at Arizona State University, said. Tesla's humanoid robots, Optimus, will be initially used in manufacturing and logistics for boring and repetitive work, thus addressing a labor shortage. For the longer term, Musk said the robot could be used in homes, even becoming a "buddy" or a "catgirl" sex partner.

People quickly become convinced that a human-like robot is capable of independent thoughts and emotions, a new study has found. This occurs when a robot appears to act on its own beliefs and desires, rather than on what it is programmed to do. Researchers from the Italian Institute of Technology probed the response of study participants to an anthropomorphic robot called iCub. The participants completed a questionnaire before and after interacting with iCub, that was programmed to act either like a robot or in a more friendly manner. It was found that those exposed to the robot programmed to act more like a human were more likely to rate the robot's actions as intentional.

The world isn't far from the days when humanoid robots will be deeply integrated into our lives and will handle major tasks that we are fully capable of doing ourselves. However, some even fear a potential apocalypse courtesy of the same robots that are being developed using artificial intelligence (AI). Possibly supporting one of the two aforementioned possibilities, one of the world's richest men and tech mogul Elon Musk has given a heads up that the real androids are just years away from entering the human world. Replying to a Twitter video featuring a human-like robot, Musk wrote, "Real androids are coming", which might be a warning about the dominance robots might have on our lives in a few years. Considering Musk's previous statements on artificial intelligence, one can reckon that he believes that humans will be tamed by it one day.

Have you ever thought about AI ruling over humans, machines giving us commands? My answer to this question is a NO.It will not be possible in the near future. Machines can learn but not understand. They can learn our emotions but still not feel it. We have terms like machine learning, deep learning and not machine understanding or deep understanding right.

Leaping around an obstacle course and pulling off backflips, this eerily human-like robot is only too happy to show off its parkour skills. Named Atlas, the humanoid was filmed by Boston Dynamics -- the firm behind the famous robotic dog Spot. The incredible footage shows the two-legged robot impressively maintaining its balance as it takes on a series of jumps, vaults and balance beams. They were set up by Boston Dynamics engineers to experiment with new behaviours for Atlas, as well as developing its whole-body athletics through a variety of rapidly changing, high-energy activities. Boston Dynamics engineers created the obstacle course to develop Atlas' whole-body athletics through a variety of rapidly changing, high-energy activities The humanoid, which was first unveiled to the public in July 2013, measures 1.5m (4.9ft) tall and weighs 75kg (11.8st).

Researchers at Tokyo Institute of Technology and Riken, Japan, have gained new insight into how we perceive and interact with the voice of various machines. The team performed a meta-synthesis, and their findings provide new information about human preferences, which engineers and designers can use to develop future voice technologies.