Humanoid Robots and Humanoid AI: Review, Perspectives and Directions

TL;DR

This paper reviews the evolution of humanoid robots and AI, highlighting recent advancements in generative AI that enable more human-like, interactive, and multimodal humanoid systems with diverse applications.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive survey of existing humanoids, introduces a systematic terminology, and proposes new perspectives and directions for developing human-like and human-level humanoid AI.

Findings

Systematic terminology for humanoid robots and AI.

Identification of key directions for future humanoid AI development.

Analysis of 30 reported humanoids and their capabilities.

Abstract

In the approximately century-long journey of robotics, humanoid robots made their debut around six decades ago. While current humanoids bear human-like appearances, none have embodied true humaneness, remaining distant from achieving human-like to human-level intelligence. The rapid recent advancements in generative AI and (multimodal) large language models have further reignited and escalated interest in humanoids towards real-time, interactive, and multimodal designs and applications, such as fostering humanoid workers, advisers, educators, medical professionals, caregivers, and receptionists. These unveil boundless opportunities of transforming 1) AI robotics into a research era of humanoid AI, and 2) AI robots into new-generation humanoid AI robots (AI humanoids). Our unique and comprehensive review of about 30 reported humanoids discloses a systematic terminology and a paradigmatic landscape of human-looking to human-like and human-level humanoids. It inspires comprehensive new perspectives and directions of humanoid AI as an area: transitioning from human-looking to humane humanoids, humanizing humanoids with functional and nonfunctional specifications, and cultivating technical and actionable advances of AI humanoids. Humanoid AI and AI humanoids nurture symbiotic advancements and future opportunities of synthesizing and transforming humanity modeling and conventional, generative to human-level AI into humanoid robotics.