"Our goal is to deploy autonomous humanoid workers to support us on a global scale," writes robotics and AI startup Figure, who recently revealed their Figure 02 'bot. "As we reach the upper limits of our production capability, humanoids will join the workforce with the ability to think, learn, and interact with their environment safely alongside us.""Figure 02 is AI-powered and self-reliant, ready to produce an abundance of affordable, more widely available goods and services to a degree which humanity has never seen."For them to achieve their goal, their Figure 02 'bots have to be able to interact with humans. This is a fairly stunning demonstration of where they're at right now:Three things jumped out at me.One, the delay while it "thinks" is a bit eerie.Two, I was surprised at how human-sounding they've got the voice, and I'm not sure I like the hesitancy they've programmed in, where it actually says "uh;" it's one thing to make the robot human-shaped so that it can work in human spaces, but I think it's a bad idea to lull people into feeling that they're interacting with another human. I think robots should sound like robots, so that we never forget what we're interacting with. Barriers to forming subconscious emotional connections with these machines should be designed in.Three, check out those graphics on its face. While the visual language is not yet clear, you can see the designers are trying to convey to the interactee that something is happening; the 'bot is sensing now, the 'bot is processing now. To me, those face graphics are the most interesting part, and they remind me of the early days of GUIs. Rather than render a human face with expressions, the designers are using low-resolution white-on-black shapes to provide visual feedback to the human. I'll be curious to see how this visual language develops, and how competitors will handle it. Your thoughts? Would you be comfortable interacting with one of these?