Behind him hangs his company's first prototype, an unskinned humanoid robot that could be your shame box of cords gone sentient. While it's naked for now, a nearby 3D printer is creating a panel that will form its shell.
Five years in development, in the middle of a $4 million funding round, Kind Humanoid wants to put a dozen of its robots into field testing next year, to be a generalist machine capable of assisting in areas facing labor shortages like healthcare -- as part of a much larger race to be the defacto brand for humanoid robots we see between companies including Figure and Tesla.
But while the system is a humanoid that stands on two legs and grasps things with two hands, it's not designed to literally look human. Instead, the design firm Fuseproject was inspired by the 20th century surrealist Rene Magritte, who depicted people with objects obstructing their faces. Instead of a nose and mouth, the robot will feature a large visor that depicts animations of clouds and sky that almost resemble a desktop wallpaper. A pair of eyes float within this scenery to convey intent -- morphing into eyebrows for a smile or a series of dots when it's thinking.