Apple has published a research paper that explores how humans interact with robots. The company argues that expressing human-like movements is key to creating natural interactions between humans and machines.
The study uses an example of a lamp as a non-anthropomorphic robot, highlighting the importance of integrating expressive qualities into robot movement design. The video shows the lamp behaving like Pixar’s Luxo Jr. character, with simple movements that tap into our lizard brain’s tendency for pareidolia – a perception that we see patterns or meaning in random stimuli.
The research arrives as Apple ramps up its consumer robotics efforts ahead of a planned release of a smart home system. The inclusion of a non-anthropomorphic form factor suggests the robot may be even less humanoid than Amazon’s Astro robot, with rumors describing it as “a robot arm with an iPad attached.”
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/08/apples-new-research-robot-takes-a-page-from-pixars-playbook