The humanoid robot has re-entered the spotlight，yet not as a science-fiction fantasy, but as a product demo, a national competition, and a household promise. 1X recently unveiled its home-oriented domestic robot NEO; XPeng introduced the humanoid robot IRON at its 2025 Tech Day as part of its embodied intelligence matrix, announcing open SDKs and plans for mass production; meanwhile, Beijing hosted the first “World Humanoid Robot Games.” It feels as though the world of Detroit: Become Human is no longer distant.
Yet this is not the first wave of fascination with humanlike machines. As early as the 1950s, fascination with the “human form” had already begun, from 18th-century automata that imitated human gestures, to Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics that gave machines moral agency, and Japan’s Wabot-1 in the 1970s that sought to recreate human movement itself. However, between the 1980s and 2010s, the rise of pragmatism and the AI turn shifted robotics away from bodily resemblance. Industrial robots pursued precision, efficiency, and modularity, while artificial intelligence evolved into pure computational intelligence — expert systems and machine learning detached from any physical embodiment. During this period, the humanoid robot became a symbol of the impractical, wasteful, and unnecessary.
But today, in an age where Roombas and smart homes already serve our daily needs, why do we still refuse to abandon the dream of replicating ourselves? Why has the human form returned — not as an obsolete fantasy, but as the central pursuit once again? What psychological, cultural, or political desires are reflected in this obsession? And why, despite our awareness of the “uncanny valley,” do we still insist on building robots in our own image?