From NBC News: When the streets of Los Angeles flooded with rain last week, some of the city’s residents found themselves feeling sorry for a peculiar object: a food delivery robot floundering in water and debris.
“She’s doing her best, you guys,” one social media user says in a video posted to Instagram showing a delivery robot struggling to drive onto a flooding curb. “Wait, I’m so sad. This is an empath’s worst nightmare.”
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In many major cities, the delivery robots taking over sidewalks bear facial expressions and names of their own. In turn, some observers have reacted with affection and sympathy for the machines as they trek along: They’re helping them navigate through debris, pushing crosswalk buttons for them, even wishing them luck on their journey.
AI-powered robots, previously limited to factories, are becoming more prevalent in everyday spaces.
Now that they’re geared toward human interaction, tech developers are designing AI-powered robots with cute, pet-like appearances to make them more appealing.
“If you were a robot developer or designer, you would certainly not want your product to be threatening. You would want people to feel comfortable,” said robot designer Ellie Sanoubari. “You would want to signal that it is friendly, that it is not going to harm anyone.”
Design choices like larger heads, big eyes, and “cute” noises can evoke “deeply seated biological responses in us,” Sanoubari said.
Boston Dynamics has dressed up one of their robots as a blue dog and made it dance in an attempt to make it cute. What do you think? Cute or creep? Love or napalm? pic.twitter.com/s3HJZKvhDW
— Javi Lopez ⛩️ (@javilopen) July 20, 2024
this adorable little robot just delivered my hangover food and now i love him. (not sponsored i just think he is cute) pic.twitter.com/jQOt66iRKL
— Tiffany Fong (@TiffanyFong) September 29, 2024
Disney’s cute little robot joined Jensen on stage at GTC Paris.
Jensen says that due to agents and robots, inference workloads are going to explode. He is bullish on Europe, saying the amount of AI infrastructure built in Europe will increase by 10x in the next couple of years. pic.twitter.com/NHEThqLCPp
— The Humanoid Hub (@TheHumanoidHub) June 12, 2025
Ludens AI brought some very cute robots to CES 2026. This is Cocomo, a robot pet that’s designed to be a companion. It can follow you around and learn about you over time. pic.twitter.com/rj6dLXN4h4
— Karissa Bell (@karissabe) January 5, 2026
Read more at NBC News
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