“Westworld’ is closer than I thought.”
A robotics company in China has shown off a humanoid robotic head that can express emotions through extremely subtle movements of its facial features.
A video that has gone viral on social media shows the face glancing around the room with a quizzical expression. Its eyes blink in an eerily lifelike way, selling the illusion surprisingly well.
Hangzhou, China-based outfit AheadForm, which is behind the impressive demo, claims on its website to combine “self-supervised AI algorithms” and wide-range “bionic actuation” to “express authentic emotions and lifelike facial expressions.”
The demo goes to show how far human mimicry in the field of humanoid robotics has come, landing in the furthest reaches of the uncanny valley.
“Well… ‘Westworld’ is closer than I thought,” one Reddit user pondered in response to the video, referring to the hit HBO sci-fi show — and 1973 movie, and Michael Crichton novel — about a fictional amusement park populated by android “hosts.”
No uncanny valley,just ultra-humanlike robots that feel natural.
Hangzhou-based AheafFrom isn’t just building emotional humanoid robots, but replicas of future humans.
They collaborate with artists to craft beautiful appearances, powered by CharacterMind, a system that gives… pic.twitter.com/QzeR3VzsZC
— CyberRobo (@CyberRobooo) September 17, 2025
AheadForm says it’s already developed a series of “ultra-lifelike” humanoid “elves,” which can “perceive the world, communicate, learn, and interact intelligently with its surroundings” thanks to an “advanced AI learning algorithm.”
According to the company’s founder, Hu Yuhang, the lines between human and robot are bound to continue to blur, eventually becoming barely distinguishable from each other.
“Within ten years, we might interact with robots and feel like they are almost human; maybe in 20 years, they could walk normally and perform some tasks just like a human,” he told the South China Morning Post last year.
For now, the humanoid robot industry’s main focus is productivity, rather than mimicking human personality expressions. A growing cohort of companies, including Tesla, is aiming to replace human labor with their offerings, teach them how to kickbox, and selling them as the ultimate household aid.
However, as Yuhang suggests, such a future appears to still be a long way out. Not everybody’s convinced that bipedal robots are the answer, either, with some arguing that purpose-built industrial robots will always be a better option.
In the meantime, AheadForm aims to prepare us for an android-filled future by using AI to make human-robot interactions more “natural and engaging.”
But given their robots’ disconcertingly probing eyes, that won’t be an easy task.
More on humanoid robots: Unstoppable Martial Arts Robot Can Take a Direct Dropkick Without Falling Down