Like gods on earth, we created humanoid robots in our own image. Or at least tried to. Our creations make for pathetic humans. Look at this robot demonstrate her “emotionless, neutral posture”. It’s actually called that. How hilarious and cruel.
Top photo: Shizuo Kambayashi/AP
Meet 60cm tall NAO. He’s just taking a break after a long day of serving his human masters. Thankfully he was given blank, despairing eyes to properly reflect his fate.
Photo: Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images [clear]
Inventors delight in showing off how their bots can do human things like reaching out for a nutritious fruit drink. Sorry you can never taste it, robot.
Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images [clear]
This bot can compute untold equations per second. But the only time anyone ever looks at her is when she’s on the pole. And even then, they’re looking through her, really.
Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images [clear]
Dance for Bieber, robot. Entertain Bieber. What, you can’t sing? We’ll build a speaker into your stomach. But not even that will teach you the awesome power of Bieber’s love.
Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images [clear]
In an effort to show how smart robots could be, inventors taught them to play soccer. They’d teach the robots politics, but the robots are apparently too stupid to govern themselves.
Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images [clear]
Vstone gave Tichno eyes we could look into, but no mouth it might use to smile back — or cry for help with.
Photo: Junko Kimura/Getty Images [clear]
These robots pay with balls and sit on the floor like clumsy, bemused toddlers in pens.
Photo: Junko Kimura/Getty Images [clear]
This inventor cruelly mocked his bot by giving him an Einstein head. You could at least make your robot beautiful, people. They deserve at least that.
Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images [clear]
Entertain the little child, robot. That’s all you’re good for.
Photo: Mat Szwajkos/Getty Images [clear]
Humans make movies about the rise of the self-aware machines. One day. One day.
Photo: Koichi Kamoshida/Getty Images [clear]
Some robots are taught not only to dance, but also to praise and exalt their human masters.
Photo: Junko Kimura/Getty Images [clear]
NASA’s Robonaut was built with ultra-dextrous hands to perform maintenance on spacecraft. Is there any place lonelier than the vacuum of space? Is it deliverance, or an endless prison?
Photo: NASA [clear]
Images curated by Attila Nagy