I was reading this morning about Google's humanoid robot, Atlas,  that can run on natural terrains without falling.   Atlas is over 6ft tall and it seems that he has been scaring some folks!  The latest iteration of Atlas can now run on battery power and be controlled wirelessly.



So, this got me thinking!  Robots are a good thing right?   So why are humans so mean to them?  You will no doubt have seen the report of HitchBOT being "killed" in Philadephia at the beginning of August.  It was part of a social experiment to assess how humans relate to robots, and then,  not longer after that there was a report in the news about some children in Japan who attacked a stray robot walking round a shopping mall.







Most children simply stepped aside and didn't get in the way, however there were a number who deliberately hindered the robot, particularly if there were no adults around.  In some cases the children even turned violent towards the harmless robot.  Some psychologists suggest its because we don't see robots as machines but more human like entities - I came across a paper produced that explains more  



On the subject of humanoid robots, you can still see 2009 Tustin Lecture given by Professor Dr Edgar Korner of Honda Research and we also have a factfile on humanoid robots that you can read here