Innovations
Robots got smarter, smaller and more deadly this year.
They did it on the back of advanced artificial intelligence, breakthroughs in soft gels and smaller electronic sensors.
Matt Stone/University of Washington/Matt Stone/University of Washington
Here’s a look at a notable few:
Matt Stone/University of Washington/Matt Stone/University of Washington
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/Matt Stone/University of Washington
In a bid to make robots tinier, scientists scoured the insect world for inspiration this year, strapping 3D-printed sensors onto Madagascar hissing cockroaches to potentially find earthquake victims.
They also made fully robotic flies that could sniff out gas leaks and crafted lightning bugs to potentially pollinate farms in space.
/Matt Stone/University of Washington
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/The Washington Post
The never-ending quest to make humanlike robots saw some notable events this year.
Elon Musk unveiled a prototype of Tesla’s human-sized Optimus robot that drew skepticism, bipedal machines broke speed records and Google tried to make one that could flip burgers.
/The Washington Post
Robot Flippy 2 works at a Jack in the Box fast-food restaurant in San Diego.
Sparked by a pandemic-era labor crunch, restaurants are hiring robots to take the place of humans.
They can now do tasks such as flipping fries, serving drinks and seasoning tortilla chips.
A prototype of the magnetic tentacle robot created at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.
University of Leeds/University of Leeds
University of Leeds/University of Leeds
With better soft gels and tinier magnets, doctors may get new robots to help them work.
That includes this snakelike tentacle robot that slithers down your lungs and could spot cancer.
University of Leeds/University of Leeds
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/Amazon
The battle between humans and robots reached a turning point, with big corporations such as Amazon and FedEx using warehouse robots that have better vision and can grasp things with humanlike finesse.
That also prompted concerns about layoffs, as well as injuries from labor and workplace safety advocates.
(Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
/Amazon
A sign from an anti-robot protest in London in April.
Oli Scarff/Getty Images
Oli Scarff/Getty Images
The war in Ukraine sparked a rise in the use of lethal drones.
An Israeli company created a racing drone that could kill and potentially be used in urban conflict zones such as in Israel and Palestinian territories.
The use of drones in war has enraged some human rights activists.
Oli Scarff/Getty Images
Miso Robotics engineer Roham Mactabi works on Sippy, the world's first point-of-sale-integrated automatic beverage dispenser and sealer, in Pasadena, Calif.
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Editing and Production by Laura Stevens and Karly Domb Sadof