--- title: "This Creepy Toddler-Sized Robot Will Haunt Your Dreams" description: "Meet iCub, a toddler-sized robot created by researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology that just might give you nightmares." date: "2018-09-18" modified: "2018-09-18" authors: - name: "Jon Christian" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc" url: "https://futurism.com/creepy-toddler-sized-robot" categories: - "Robotics" - "Robots and Machines" tags: - "embodied cognition" - "icub" - "italian institute of technology" - "the digets" --- # This Creepy Toddler-Sized Robot Will Haunt Your Dreams ![]() *\Image: iCub HumanoidRobot / Emily Cho\* ## COME PLAY WITH US Forget the Terminator. Forget the robot dog from "Black Mirror." The award for the scariest automaton we've ever seen goes to this toddler-sized robot, [clumsily imitating a researcher's motions]() with horribly empty eyes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jemGKRxdAM8&feature=youtu.be ## HALEY JOEL OHMYGOD This nightmare's name is iCub, an [open source humanoid]() robot created by researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) with support from the European Union. Since it debuted a decade ago, according to the project's web site, the pint-sized bot has been used by 20 labs around the world. The [idea behind iCub]() is to explore "embodied cognition," the theory that human intelligence is fundamentally related to the experience of navigating the world. So iCub is designed to explore its environment like a toddler, by crawling and manipulating objects — or tottering around a lab with jerky, horror-movie-special-effect-style movements. ## I, SLOWBOT In the clip, iCub used its 53 motors to let a researcher at IIT at "telexist" with it, controlling its movements and seeing through the toddler-sized robot's eyes — or, you know, cameras — using a VR headset and an "omni-directional mill" that picks up gait. The project is described in [a paper]() uploaded earlier this month to a*rXiv*, which found that users could learn to control the robot with an ease that demonstrates a "good starting point to guarantee successful full immersion teleoperation and telexistence." It's an impressive technical achievement, but iCub's shuffling, slow-motion gait illustrates the shortcomings of contemporary robotics — and staves off the inevitable startup that will let parents rent a playmate for the socially awkward kid. At least for now. **READ MORE:** [iCub is the Robot That is Equally Cute and Creepy]() \[*Hackaday*\] ***More on robotics: This Robot Just Gets Us*** ## Author I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()