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Here’s the breakdown of what’s in store today

⭐ 1 Shift: Why Do We Want Our Robots To Look Like Humans?

⚡ 1 Tip: Shaping Creative Briefs

💊 3 Resources: Creative Resources For Taking Your Work to the Next Level

⭐ Shift

Why Do We Want Our Robots To Look Like Humans?

Humanoid robots are somewhere between "Oh, cool!" and "Is this how the world ends?" For the uninitiated, we're talking about robots mimicking human-like movements as opposed to bots that don’t necessarily rely on human kinematics.

Why bother? Well, The Brainy Insights thinks there's money in this. From a modest $1.6 billion (U.S.) in 2022, they project the market for these humanoids to stretch to $214.4 billion by 2032. This is roughly a CAGR of 63.2%.

It’s always been unsettling to me - the fact that we insist that our robots look like humans. I mean, our ubers dont look like cabs and our cell phones don’t look like the old corded telephones so why humanoids? Let’s take a deep dive and towards the end we’ll talk about why this is important today in 2023.

Quick History of Humanoid Bots

Here is a snapshot what a quick journey through history of humanoid robots looks like. This is important so that you know we have been working towards this vision for over 50 years.

• WABOT-1 (1973): From Waseda University in Japan, it could walk. No, it didn't jog or do the moonwalk, but baby steps. It also looked like a Roblox character.

• Honda P-series (late 1990s): The P3 from this series was like that childhood toy you wanted but never got – battery-powered and vaguely resembling a person.

• ASIMO (2000): Honda again. ASIMO could run, dance, and became a robotic celebrity.

• HUBO (2005): From KAIST, it walked and had hands and interestingly an Einstein head.

• Atlas (2013): An innovation from Boston Dynamics with DARPA's backing, Atlas is renowned for its balance, agility, and even acrobatics like backflips.

• Pepper (2014): SoftBank Robotics’ brainchild, Pepper, is built to comprehend and respond to human emotions, for roles demanding human interaction.

• Sophia (2016): Hanson Robotics built Sophia and she even got Saudi Arabian citizenship.

There’s a much more exhaustive breakdown somewhere on the internet so I’d leave that to you to research. For now, let’s talk about why even make them look human?

The Case for Making Robots Human Like

The decision to design robots in a humanoid form (resembling human beings) has both practical and psychological reasons behind it. I was researching and these 4 themes came up -

1. Functional Integration: Humanoid robots can effectively use tools and navigate spaces designed for humans, making interactions like opening fridges or driving cars simpler.

2. Social Interaction: Robots resembling humans can foster better relatability and empathy, aiding in roles like caregiving. They also excel in non-verbal communication, mimicking gestures for clearer interaction akin to designing affordances in a device.

3. Research Platforms: Building humanoid robots offers dual benefits: insights into human biomechanics and neurology, which in turn helps improve robotic design. You learn more about robots from humans and you learn about humans through these robots.

4. Aesthetics and Novelty: Human-like robots echo cultural and fictional narratives, manifesting our collective fascinations from literature and media.

The Uncanny Valley

While all the benefits make sense for businesses to pursue that route - I do think all humanoids look creepy af. And I know I am not alone. There is a hypothesis in human-robot interaction called the uncanny valley which suggests that as a robot becomes more human-like, our empathy and positive reaction towards it increase—up to a point.

When it's almost but not quite perfectly human, our reaction suddenly turns to strong revulsion. This dip in positive reaction (the "valley") is the region where things feel "uncanny" or strange. (Yes, the same effect gen AI has.)

Many roboticists and designers are aware of the uncanny valley and work either to avoid it (by making robots clearly robotic eg. everything Boston Dynamics) or to overcome it by making robots as indistinguishably human-like as possible.

The exact causes of the Uncanny Valley are still debated, but some theories include:

• Almost Human but Not Quite: Slight imperfections make us focus more on what's "off" about the robot, making it eerie.

• Evolutionary Perspective: From an evolutionary standpoint, things that look human but move oddly or have other non-human characteristics might be perceived as potential threats or as diseased or unhealthy.

The humanoid landscape Now

Big signs that point towards why we need to talk about them now is the fact that prominent companies like Tesla and Open AI are investing tons of money into making humanoids a commercial reality. Tesla’s humanoid bot Optimus isn’t the most impressive just yet but earlier this year they showed significant development in the hands part of their prototype.

I like how Electrek describes the Optimus - “When you think about it, there’s no major engineering problem that needs to be solved in order to create a humanoid robot. It just needs to be efficiently packaged as well as designed and manufactured in a way that the robot doesn’t cost more than $100,000.”

I totally agree but now with GPT4 and predictive AI, the breed of humanoids is becoming even more stronger (and dare I say, human like). Open AI backed company 1X robotics created Neo which they are claiming is a humanoid that gets better as it learns thanks to it’s AI. Designed for the general public and for daily purposes, it’s probably the first offering for the masses.

What’s even more crazy is that they want to open pre-orders before the end of 2023. This is from the 1x’s website - “The more you interact with them, navigating life with NEO will feel natural and intuitive. NEO will understand their own environment and how to handle fragile items, creating seamless collaboration and immersive human-robot interaction.”

Other Startups you need to keep your eye on:

1. Apptronik’s Apollo General purpose robot designed to operate in warehouses and manufacturing plants in the near term eventually extending into construction, oil and gas, electronics production, retail, home delivery, elder care and countless more areas.

2. Ameca Primarily designed as a platform for further developing robotics technologies involving human-robot interaction. Also made several TV appearances.

3. I don’t know what company this is but check out this video from a robots show in China from earlier this year. They look like NPCs.

So what’s the shift?

Humanoids are coming sooner than you think

I did some digging to determine our direction, and I have some intriguing insights to share. Firstly, humanoids are coming this decade. NASA also recently talked about using humanoids for their mars and outer-space missions. But on Earth, they will be deployed in factories first, and then parallely you will start to see consumer versions of these bots.

Secondly, China will lead this market, at least at the start. China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, along with 14 other governmental agencies, had unveiled strategies to advance the nation's robotics sector in the 14th five-year agenda a couple of years ago. One of the largest consumer tech company Xiaomi also has a humanoid called CyberOne under works - which btw can read human emotions.

And lastly, together with AI advancements and large language models getting smarter, faster, more optimized and accessible - the AI boom is going to significantly propel the robotics market (as you will see if you were to search for the World Robot Conference that just happened in Beijing). This market has never really died btw. It’s always been chugging along.

Exciting Opportunities :

1. Robot Service: I have a lot of ideas here. I think once humanoids become a regular thing (3-8 years timeline), a robot for hire service will need to be built. There will be space for two special services - rent out your robot like Turo and order a robot for your tasks (ehmm..) like the Task Rabbit app.

2. Robot accessories: I can't even imagine the amount of aftermarket accessories that will be built to serve this market from fast chargers to on body addons - the market of accessories for robots will be a very interesting and a creative one. This is very akin to the after-market car parts industry.

What do you think - are we still that far from commercial humanoids?

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⚡ Tip

Shaping Creative Briefs

A small tip this week for people that regularly deal with creative briefs from clients.

“If it’s not defined enough, ask what.

If it’s too defined, ask why.”

You want to challenge your clients to give you enough constraints to define your playfield but at the same time, you need to have enough freedom to exercise your creativity.

When the brief is too vague - ask what questions. What is the purpose, what have you done so far? What does the market look like?

When the brief is too defined, ask why questions. Why did you settle on this? Why do you think it’s important? Why did you not include x?

💊 Resources

3 links to boost your creativity.

• SearchSystem One of my favourite curated design moodboard website.

• Mockup World All their graphic design mockups are free which is awesome.

• Dan Lok’s 5 copywriting tips for beginners is a solid video that is to the point and can get you started right away.