Although Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2025 in Barcelona has been full of technological novelties, from folding mobiles with three screens to advances in artificial intelligence, there is a name that everyone has spoken: Amira.
This humanoid robot, developed by the British company Engineered Arts in collaboration with the Emiratí E & operator, previously known as Etisalat, has been the center of attention thanks to its ultrarealist appearance and his ability to speak with users in a totally natural way.
The truth is that Amira is not just any robot. Based on AMECA, also created by Engineered Arts and that gave a lot of game in the MWC of 2024, this improved version has been equipped with silicone skin, realistic hair and an artificial intelligence system that allows you to remember previous conversations.
And not only that, they have also made it even humor and a touch of irony in one of their answers, which, of course, brings it closer to the human despite being quite far from imitating us.
Although Amira cannot walk – he has a fixed base – his torso, arms and head are completely articulated, which allows him to gesture and move in a disturbingly realistic way. In addition, it has two cameras in the eyes and microphones on the neck, which allow it to recognize faces and voices.
However, you can see that there are still things to adjust and improve. Although their facial expressions are very achieved – it can smile, get angry or show surprise – their movements make it clear that it is a robot. Even so, the realism of your skin, hair and nails, mixed with that ability to answer the second to your question, make it clear that the advances of one year to another are enormous.
Is humanity ready for the “disturbing valley”?
The reaction of many MWC 2025 attendees against Amira has been a mixture of fascination and discomfort. The concept of the “disturbing valley”, which describes the feeling of rejection generated by robots too similar to humans, has been very present in conversations about it.
Unlike his predecessor, Ameca, who could clearly see that there was still a lot of work to do, Amira is already approaching the almost human appearance. This has given rise to all kinds of opinions: while some find it very fun and incredible, others call it disturbing or creepy.
Comment that Amira’s great advance is not only its appearance, but its ability to interact intelligently. It is driven by OpenAi GPT-4, you can keep conversations in more than 50 languages and respond naturally, without the need for questions to be in a specific way or start with a particular phrase.
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What will happen to the future with this type of humanoid robots?
There is no doubt that this type of robots such as Amira puts on the table the enormous doubt of how humanity will accept these robots when they really start and will finally help and penetrate society.
Although its potential in sectors such as customer service, education or entertainment is enormous, they always flutter the same usual questions about the future of work or even the issue of privacy and cybersecurity.
For now, tranquility because Amira is a demonstration of what technology can achieve, but its mass adoption is not expected in a short period of time. Meanwhile, which has been seen in the MWC 2025, it has made it clear that the future of human robotics evolves quite a lot for another and that this is going forward and are getting closer to what many imagined.
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Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Mobile World Congress