In our image: do we need humanoid robots?

Sci-fi is full of stuff you don't want to think about too much. Why do starships with carriers have brigs with force fields? Why not just teleport a prisoner to an enclosed space? Why do the Cylons fly ships with human controls? Why not have a plug in their… well, you get the idea. Besides, why do the Cylons (and Kaylons and Gort) even look human? Why aren't some Cylons just ships?

Of course, the real reason is that we can relate to them, and actors can play them with cosplay gear and makeup. But actual robots that are practical rarely look like humans at all.

No one will mistake a robotic factory arm or a Roomba for a person, yet they are perfectly suited for their purpose. Still, we're fascinated by human-looking robots and continue to build them, like IHMC Robotics' Nadia in the video below.

It's something of hubris to think that the human form is ideal for everything. Look at nature. While some animals look like us, others are totally different because they correspond to different ecological niches. If you want to make an intelligent machine, why not make it fly, jump, swim, or even stay in one place, if that's what it has to do? Robotic fast food chefs, for example, tend to ride on a ceiling-mounted track, and why wouldn't they? As much as we like to imagine androids, an army of steelworkers asking us if we want fries with this would probably be a little unnerving.

No problem of selection which is the robot. CC-BY-SA-4.0 by [Nicholas-halodi]

There have been calls recently not to arm robots. We had to laugh because the robots are already armed. What is a cruise missile or an autonomous drone with a weapon if not an armed robot? Self-driving cars are weapons on their own. A bullet is no more dangerous than being hit by a 3,000 kg vehicle. Still, it seems that robots that look like people carrying guns make people feel more uncomfortable than non-anthropomorphic autonomous weapons.

A use case could be in the area of ​​human interaction. Maybe you really want your robot nurse or translator (C3PO) to look human. A robot designed to replace a person may sometimes need to appear somewhat human, but in general this is not an effective approach. (Has Star Wars got it all?) What use cases can you think of for human-looking robots that don't pretend to be people?

Let's face it. Robots like Sophia, ASIMO or RoboNaut/FEDOR are good news. Flippy ROAR may not be quite as sexy, but it's a lot...