The Real Reason Robots Shouldn’t Look Like Humans

Huge thanks to Dr. Elliot Hawkes for giving us the updates on his robots, and for showing them to us over the years!

Our videos in this supercut:

0:00 - Intro
2:04 - Unstoppable Vine Robot
15:13 - Update on Vine Robot!
20:24 - Highest Jumping Robot
32:15 - Update on the Jumper!
38:26 - Micromouse Competition
1:02:15 - Benefit of non-humanoid robots
1:02:48 - Brilliant
1:04:24 - Bendy Machines
1:16:26 - Soft Robots
1:25:55 - Conclusion

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Adam Foreman, Anton Ragin, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Bill Linder, Blake Byers, Bruce, Burt Humburg, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, I. H., John H. Austin, Jr., john kiehl, Josh Hibschman, Juan Benet, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Tj Steyn, TTST, Ubiquity Ventures, wolfee, and Yar

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Images & Video:

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Filmed by Derek Muller
Edited by Trenton Oliver and Peter Nelson
Produced by Emily Zhang, Gregor Čavlović, Rob Beasley Spence, and Emily Taylor
Thumbnail contributions by Ignat Berbeci, Ren Hurley, and Peter Sheppard
Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images
Music from Epidemic Sound

[MissFaerlynn]

The length of this video scares me. This is no longer a "thing to watch while eating" kind of video, this is now a full movie for which I cook to eat whole watching it instead...

[lauraluna]

In my first semester of engineering school, I had a class called Bio-Inspired Design where the core philosophy behind that is that humans are trying to solve problems that nature has already figured out millennia ago, so instead of re-inventing the wheel and finding a solution through brute force, engineers can look at how nature has adapted to the problem and base their designs off of that.

At the time, it felt like a no-brainer and an underrated design philosophy among engineers, especially in America. It made me smile to see how the vine robot was based on that exact principle and hopefully the same could be said for a multitude of other projects after that.

[DirefulClamp]

I came here just to say that I got to watch your videos in jail before I went to prison. I wanted to say thank you. You gave me so much joy and helped me learn about some of my favorite sciences (idk if thats a word) Thank you veritasium for all that you've helped me with. I was in a rough spot with my daughter being 2 months old at the time and me missing so much of her life due to my poor choices. But you gave me a glimmer of joy and happiness. You truly helped me. Thank you so much

[CompuBrains]

People have been saying "we'll never have humanoid robots, they're impractical" for decades. It just seems like for whatever reason, people really, really, really want humanoid robots and are willing to sacrifice practicality to get them.

[victzegopterix]

"And what else can you think of to do with it."
_Tries very hard to not imagine weird sextoys._

[rosieposie]

My boyfriend saw Diana over my shoulder and looked at the release time of the video and was excited for a moment. I had to break his heart and tell him it was a compilation. I really hope she gets better.

[gorilladisco]

Rescue team : use vine robot to find people buried inside collapsed mine
The victims : alien! We are invaded by aliens!!!"

[fredericklehoux]

I've seen this argument years ago. We've been making robots for hundreds of years. We just don't make them human shape, we make them the shape that is best suited for their purpose. A dishwashing machine is pretty good at washing dishes compared to humans, but it also doesn't achieve the task by doing it like a human, dishes by dishes scrapping it with a clothe, etc. It just floods it for 45 minutes, it contain all the liquids and detergent. Drain it out. Purpose built robot are just more efficient to do what they do.

[.]

New stuff:
15:13 - Vine Robot Update - People’s best ideas
32:15 - Jumper Update - Why it was so hard to build
1:02:15 - The main benefit of non-humanoid robots
1:25:55 - Conclusion

[Anonymous-sbrr]

Now we need a robot cat that tries to catch the robot mouse.

[ScottCalvinsClause]

Veritasium: "WAIT! SO, YOU'RE TELLING ME!!!???"
Compliant Engineer: "yup"

[LostButMakingGoodTime]

Medical vine robot becomes sentient in the middle of a colonoscopy and decides the patient’s fate in a microsecond.

[dil]

Watching Interstellar made me think their vision of future robots is more accurate than the concepts we always see online and in the media. There are so many compromises being made to fit the humanoid mold without much thought as to whether or not it's even necessary for the sorts of tasks we'd use robots for. In general, simpler designs almost always win out over complex and flashy designs.

[JarheadCrayonEater]

"Cadaver Lab".
My grandfather was a Professor of Advanced Biology from the time he got out of WWII until the 1990's, and he pioneered Cadaver Labs, pushing for them to be adopted into colleges and universities.

[dominokos]

Why would we need humanoid robots when we have humans? We need robots that do the things humans can't do the most.

[rubarmohammad]

I just sat in the train and the trip was 90 minutes. Out of nowhere a notification from Veritasium of a video that 87 minutes long. Played it directly after 1 minute of uploading.
Great work.

[kaurkelt]

An hour long video, I am so ready





Frick it's a compilation

[themightykraken]

If a jumping spider wasn't enough, we now have slingshot spiders. Absolute nightmare.

[kevinhorrell]

Bro called a wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man an inflatable play-doh like structure.

[ravikrishnareddy]

ONE AND HALF HOUR FROM VERITASIUM??? THE LORDS HAVE SPOKEN