Hyundai unveiled its next-generation humanoid robot, Atlas, at CES. Now Hyundai Union is fighting to prevent its deployment over concerns about the workforce.

NEW YORK -- As the new robot called Sprout walks around a Manhattan office, nodding its rectangular head, lifting its windshield wiper-like “eyebrows” and offering to shake your hand with its grippers, it looks nothing like the sleek and intimidating humanoids built by companies like Tesla.

Fauna Robotics’ Sprout encourages human interactions with an expressive face and a soft foam body.

Sprout, a 3 1/2-foot-tall humanoid from Fauna Robotics, debuts with a soft foam body, expressive moves and a friendly vibe.

With stats like that, one can’t help but suspect that the first country to have a million humanoids will be China.

Humanoid robots have been in development for years, but it may feel like they will never be accessible to regular users. There are a few reasons for that.

While the robot has taken a job previously done by a human, nobody at Sterling Heights Assembly Plant is facing a layoff, Stellantis says.

The Columbia University researchers achieved the feat by allowing their robot, EMO, to study itself in a mirror. It learned how its flexible face and silicone lips would move in response to the precise actions of its 26 facial motors, each capable of moving in up to 10 degrees of freedom.

Tesla plans to more than double capital spending to a record high of more than $20 billion this year - but little of it will go to its traditional business of selling electric vehicles to human drivers.