Robotics Special: XPENG's Iron crosses the uncanny valley

Welcome back, Superhuman. When a company is forced to release a full video just to prove its new robot isn’t a human in disguise, you know they’ve got something special. XPENG’s new humanoid robot has been going viral on social media this week, walking eerily similar to a human — yet another sign that robotics is stepping into the uncanny valley.

WHAT’S NEXT

The most important news and breakthroughs in robotics this week

1. XPENG unveils its first female humanoid robot: The Chinese automaker just unveiled Iron, a humanoid robot that features bionic hands, touch-sensitive skin, and a digital face capable of expressions. Clips of Iron walking across the stage blew up on social media this week; it walked so convincingly that people actually thought that it was a human in disguise, until the company released a video debunking the claim. Iron is expected to enter mass production next year.

2. After the iPhone, robotics may be Apple’s next big cash cow: The iPhone maker may have fallen behind on AI, but could be sitting on a goldmine in robotics, according to a new Morgan Stanley report. The investment bank estimates that Apple could capture 9% of the robotics market, generating about $133B in annual revenue by 2040. This comes amidst recent rumors that the company is developing a ‘tabletop robot’ in Vietnam, set to hit the market in 2027.

3. Research claims LLMs are still not ready for robotics: AI researchers strapped 6 frontier models into robot vacuums and gave them a simple command. The results were humbling — even top models like Gemini 2.5 Pro and Claude Opus 4.1 completed the tasks just 40% and 37% of the time, respectively. The robots struggled with basic spatial reasoning, bumping into walls and losing track of objects mid-task — a sign that the gap between LLMs and robotics is still pretty wide, despite major advances in recent years.

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ROBOTS IN ACTION

How robots are transforming the world around us

🔥 Hot Dog: Viral footage from Sichuan, China, shows robot dogs being deployed for firefighting operations, marking one of the most practical real-world applications for quadruped robots yet. While specific performance metrics weren't disclosed, the trials demonstrate how robots could save lives during fires by performing reconnaissance, detecting survivors, and assessing structural damage before human crews enter.

🕸️ Gut Crawler: Scientists claim to have built a spider-inspired robot that can crawl through the digestive tract in any direction to deliver precision therapy in places where traditional endoscopes can't reach. Scientists are now refining the design to make GI diagnosis and treatment painless and more precise.

🪖 No Man Left Behind: Ukrainian forces used a ground drone to rescue a soldier trapped 33 days behind enemy lines, making its way through 40 miles of minefields and mortar strikes. The robot also survived a direct drone attack on the return journey, thanks to its armored capsule, which protected the soldier inside and got him to safety.

INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT

Everything else you need to know this week

Here are the biggest developments in the robotics space that you should know about:

• Waymo is bringing its robotaxis to Las Vegas, San Diego, and Detroit, marking a strategic shift as it tackles its biggest challenge yet — heavy snowfall.

• Physical Robotics, the Norway-based creator of the π humanoid, has emerged from stealth with an announcement of $4M in new funding.

• Sweetgreen is selling its Infinite Kitchen robotics unit to Wonder Group for $186M ($100M cash, $86M stock).

• DJI has launched the Neo 2 selfie drone in China with LiDAR obstacle avoidance, gesture controls, and nearly double the follow speed of its predecessor.

• Rivian has created another spinoff called Mind Robotics, an industrial AI venture that raised $115M in funding to build robotic solutions for manufacturing plants.

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ROBOT OF THE WEEK

A robot that caught our eye this week

Litter Robot just dropped the Litter Robot 5 Pro, a self-cleaning litter box that uses dual AI cameras that can identify your cat and track its bathroom habits for health monitoring. The robot also detects the type of waste to trigger precise odor control and optimize cleaning cycles, even flagging potential health issues before a vet visit.

You can check it out here.

ROBO REEL

Watch: Humanoid robot chef loses grip on pan in viral cooking meltdown

This robot wouldn’t last a day on MasterChef.

Unitree's G1 humanoid robot blew up on X this week after a cooking attempt ended with it flinging food across the kitchen and slipping on its own mess. The 22-second clip racked up over 2M views on X, showing the robot wrestling a pan away from its owner, losing grip, and then tumbling to the ground while trying to walk over the debris.

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Until next time,

Zain and the Superhuman AI team