{"id":628533,"date":"2026-06-09T02:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T02:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/628533\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T02:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T02:59:09","slug":"could-humanoid-robots-be-heading-for-the-battlefield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/628533\/","title":{"rendered":"Could humanoid robots be heading for the battlefield?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yet not everyone is convinced the humanoid form factor is the most effective.<\/p>\n

Other robots, such as quadrupeds, can navigate terrain more quickly and efficiently, says Fankhauser of Robozaps.<\/p>\n

He also notes, based on what he has seen in the commercial space, humanoid technology still has a long way to go.<\/p>\n

Today’s commercial humanoid robots can barely handle warehouse packing let alone open a door, says Fankhauser.<\/p>\n

“If there was a war in Taiwan today, the likelihood that China is going to militarise these humanoids and fight effectively is fanciful,” he adds.<\/p>\n

While Chinese robots have produced some impressive displays, external<\/a>, they have taken place in highly controlled or structured environments \u2013 the antithesis of real-world warfare. Though Fankhauser adds things might be different in another five or 10 years.<\/p>\n

Robert Griffin works on humanoid robots at the non-profit Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, whose activities include military-funded humanoid projects focused on non-combat applications.<\/p>\n

One of its spin-out companies was later acquired by Foundation for part of its core technology.<\/p>\n

Griffin sees value in humanoids in reducing risk to human soldiers, but also says unpredictable environments remain a major hurdle.<\/p>\n

Getting a robot to jump through a window of unknown height, land on uneven ground, and immediately navigate an unfamiliar interior is hard.<\/p>\n

“You get an impression of human-level capability by seeing the human form\u2026 but [these autonomous systems] don’t know how to handle open-ended uncertainty yet,” says Griffin.<\/p>\n

Human soldiers have easily foiled AI systems by doing what is “out of the ordinary”, like somersaulting or putting cardboard boxes over their heads, external<\/a>, he adds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yet not everyone is convinced the humanoid form factor is the most effective. Other robots, such as quadrupeds,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-628533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}