This New Chinese Robot Brings The Uncanny Valley To Your Home

Robots come in all shapes and sizes. You can buy immobile handheld robots at stores like Costco, and farmers in China employ tractor-like robots to tend fields of crops. However, the pinnacle of robot design — at least according to science fiction — is humanoid robots. Name a popular sci-fi setting, and you will probably find a robot that walks upright and can do the dishes for you. Multiple robotics companies are trying to turn those stories into reality with upright robots like the 1X Neo humanoid robot. While some look like they'd be at home in "Star Wars" or "Battlestar Galactica," one Chinese company is taking a page out of many people's nightmares.

In late January 2025, during the Zhangjiang Robotics Valley exhibition, the company DroidUp (alternatively known as Zhuohide Robotics) introduced "Moya, the Bionic Human" to audience members. Moya is designed to be as humanoid as possible. Not only can the android realistically mimic human gait thanks to what DroidUp calls the "cerebellar motor control model," DroidUp's press release also claims Moya's face can emulate a variety of human emotions. While the company debuted several other robots during the event, Moya garnered the most attention. After all, this article is about that robot in particular, not DroidUp's other recent additions.

While Moya's emotional range and ambulatory capabilities are the robot's most obvious hooks, DroidUp isn't stopping there. The YouTube channel ShanghaiEye covered DroidUp's presentation and revealed several other features that make Moya more realistic (and frightening) than other robots, including cameras behind the android's eyes that can track movement. However, these are nothing compared to Moya's main body, which will be realistically soft and warm to the touch thanks in no small part to "lightweight lattice 'muscle' materials." According to the press release, this material is meant to separate Moya from what DroidUp calls the "steel image" most people associate with humanoid robots.

DroidUp didn't just debut one of the most advanced robots at Zhangjiang Robotics Valley with Moya; the company also premiered one of the most mod-friendly ones, too. Attendees saw several Moya models, each with a slightly different face. When DroidUp eventually releases the robot, it plans to make the head "highly customizable." The company also intends to offer a male variant of Moya. However, the flexibility won't end at silicone-deep cosmetics. DroidUp wants the Moya to participate in numerous industries, including business, healthcare, and companionship. We might even one day see the Moya in households, although only time will tell if it will take over a smart home.

Throughout this article, we've mentioned that the robot is a tad freaky despite its realistic face. Why? The answer is in the title: The uncanny valley. According to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the term was coined by Masahiro Mori in the 1970s when he was a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Per Mori, people gain "affinity" for robots the more humanlike they appear, but at a certain point, this affinity takes a nosedive and transforms into "a feeling of strangeness," or an "unease" that frightens people. That is the uncanny valley. This instinctual revulsion can crop up when people see certain dolls, wax statues, synthetic faces, or CGI characters.

While DroidUp's founder, Li Qingdu, stated that he didn't want Moya to "feel cold and mechanical" like other robots, the design philosophy of making humanoid robots look unlike humans is more beneficial according to Mori's uncanny valley. Of course, it isn't an exact science because, well, the uncanny valley relies on gut feelings. Viewers have no idea why a realistic robot freaks them out, and they certainly can't vocalize an explanation, but they know in their core that robots designed to look realistic while falling short of perfectly mimicking humans scare them. And while Moya might look more humanlike than many other robots, it still isn't perfect, hence why many people are likely to experience the uncanny valley around it.