DATE SUBMITTED: March, 202 5 Words: 9, 22 0 2 Abstract H umanoid robots are a form of embodied artificial intelligence (AI) that look s and act s more and more like humans. Powered by generative AI and advances in robotics, humanoid robots can speak and interact with humans rather naturally but are still easily recognizable as robots. But how will we treat humanoids when they seem indistinguishable from humans in appearance and mind? We find a tendency (called "anti - robot" speciesism) to deny such robots humanlike capabilities, driven by motivations to accord members of the human species preferential treatment . Six experiments show that robots are denied humanlike attributes, simply because they are not biological beings and because humans want to avoid feelings of cognitive dissonance when utilizing such robots for unsavory tasks . Th us, pe ople do not rationally attribute capabilities to perfectly human like robots but deny them capabilities as it suits them . Keywords: robots, artificial intelligence, humanoids, speciesism, cognitive dissonance 3 In recent years, n ew artificial intelligen ce (AI) technologies have been introduced into the marketplace that have the potential to radically change people's work and lives . This paper examines how people might react to robots that seem be " perfectly human like " . With major companies like Amazon and Nvidia planning mass production of such robots, we are entering an era where the line between human and non - human entities is increasingly blurred. Our findings suggest that the advent of such robots will not lead people to rationally conclude that these robots are as capable as humans in performing some tasks . Rather, people will deny these robots humanlike attributes, driven by their motivation to prioritize their own species and to avoid feelings of cognitive dissonance from utilizing such robots for unsavory tasks. Aversion to Robots and AI People are often averse to robots. P sychological research has explained this effect by arguing that such "almost humanlike" robots appear as aesthetically dis pleasing, and that they remind people of zombies, death, or disease (Kätsyri et al., 2015; Mori, 1970; Wang et al., 2015) . Other psychological explanations focus on how people perceive robot minds, sometimes referred to as the "uncanny valley of mind" (Müller et al., 2021; Stein & Ohler, 2017) . These theories suggest that humanoid robots can be unsettling because they remind people of the human ability to experience feelings, even though these robots are not seen as having such capabilities (Gray & Wegner, 2012; Smith et al., 2021) .

The challenge for electronic skin, being developed for use in artificial skins or humanlike robots like the humanoids, is to make it feel the temperatures and movements like how human skin feels them as much as possible. So far, there are electronic skins that can detect movement or temperature separately, but none are able to recognize both simultaneously like the human skin. A joint research team consisting of POSTECH professor Unyong Jeong and Dr. Insang You of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and Professor Zhenan Bao of Stanford University have together developed the multimodal ion-electronic skin that can measure the temperature and mechanical stimulation at the same time. The research findings, published on November 20th edition of Science, are characterized by making very simple structures through applying special properties of the ion conductors. There are various tactile receptors in the human skin that can detect hot or cold temperatures as well as other tactile sensations such as pinching, twisting or pushing.

This week saw the return, for a third season, of the critically acclaimed HBO series Westworld. WW's central premise in its first 2 seasons was a theme park, sometime in the near future, populated by highly realistic robots or'hosts'. Human guests can pay exorbitant sums to interact with these robots, in a huge range of ways. In the'western' themed area – after which the show is named – guests can choose to be white-hatted heroes or black-hatted villains. The good guys get to be brave, chivalrous, honourable and generally decent.

A startling video of a humanlike robot has been making the rounds on the internet showing the droid casually walking up a driveway. If you didn't know any better, you might think the video is real, as the hi-tech robot walks with what resembles a human's gait and, just as it passes the cameraman, gives viewers a closer look at its white-masked face and a pair of black eyes. The clip has racked up five million views and caused many scared Twitter users to warn of the end of days. A startling video of a humanlike robot has been making the rounds on the internet showing the droid casually walking up a driveway. In actuality, the creepy humanoid isn't real after all, since it was created using computer-generated graphics. South African Director Neill Blomkamp, who is known for dystopian science fiction films including'District 9' and'Chappie,' blew the lid off of any rumors it was real.

The story for intelligence is even clearer. Small-scale controlled fusion is not observed in nature, so for all we know it might be astronomically difficult or impossible. Each of us, however, is direct evidence that intelligence can arise in a few Kilos of matter powered by a few Calories of energy, in about a billion small evolutionary steps. Technological evolution is roughly retracing biology's journey. Fifty years ago our most complex machines were behaviorally simpler than bacteria.

Robotics is finally reaching the mainstream and androids - humanlike robots - are everywhere at SXSW Experts believe humanlike robots are the key to smoothing communication between humans and computers, and realizing a dream of compassionate robots that help invent the future of life. About CNBC: From'Wall Street' to'Main Street' to award winning original documentaries and Reality TV series, CNBC has you covered. Experience special sneak peeks of your favorite shows, exclusive video and more. Connect with CNBC News Online Get the latest news: http://www.cnbc.com/ Find CNBC News on Facebook: http://cnb.cx/LikeCNBC

Robot designers commonly emphasize humanlikeness as an important design feature to make robots social or user-friendly. To understand how users make sense of the design characteristics of robots, we asked 6 participants to classify and interpret the appearance of existing robots in relation to their function and potential usefulness. All the robots had humanlike aspects in their design, and participants most commonly remarked on these humanlike features of the robots. However, the commonsense logic of the “Uncanny Valley” (UV) in HRI design, which suggests that robots should be similar to humans to some degree without being too humanlike, was not supported by participant comments, which did not correlate humanlikeness to user-friendliness in line with the UV hypothesis. Rather, participants related the design features of robots to their everyday contexts, and focused their commentary on context-dependent design implications. As a result, we suggest our understanding of the design characteristics of robots should include the perspectives of users from the earliest stages of design so we can understand their contextual interpretations of different design characteristics. Open and modularized technical platforms could support the inclusion of users in the creation of future social robots.