Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
When I say I got hands-on with the new Boston Dynamics Atlas robot, I mean I actually held it. This humanoid robot, which CNET just gave an award to Best Robot Award at CESis one of the most advanced in the world, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get to know it up close and personal.
This product of the robot, which is scheduled to be shipped to Hyundai factories to begin work soon, has been the talk of the town CES this year. The specific Atlas robot I encountered was a static model that was not fully powered or powered on. So, our interactions were unfortunately one-sided. Still, I ran my hand over its soft-touch plastic casing and gently squeezed its knuckles, wondering how it would feel if they held me back.
Atlas’s hands are some of the most human things about it.
People tend to have mixed feelings about humanoid robots, which is understandable since they are built in our image to some extent, while they are usually stronger than us, and have “brains” that we do not fully understand. Atlas certainly evokes conflicting feelings for me – even more so when I stand face to face with him.
I am fascinated by engineering, a little frightened by its capabilities, undecided about what it could mean for the future of humanity and fascinated by its design and design. The blue version of Atlas that I met in the exhibition hall Consumer Electronics Show 2026 It’s almost more like a Dyson product than the industrial robots that characterized Boston Dynamics’ early days, when it was best known for its work with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Watch this: Atlas has left the laboratory! Boston Dynamics Humanoid in-person demo
“There are a lot of really specific things about this robot that might seem a little strange,” said Zachary Jackowski, Boston Dynamics vice president and general manager of Atlas. He pointed to the legs, which he described as “no one else has done.”
Atlas thighs are narrow and in line with the torso, while calves are wider, and connected to their upper counterparts with a circular joint. This robot actually has precise curves and smooth lines. There are no harsh edges or stark corners.
During a year in which CES is filled with humanoid robots, the Atlas certainly stands out thanks to its design. He appears to be less human and less artificial than some of his peers, while also lacking the creepy, often featureless faces they tend to display. Instead, it has two low-set cameras that look like eyes placed where you would normally expect a mouth to be. His face is a perfect flat circle, outlined by an LED halo giving it a bit of a Pixar lamp effect.
Atlas’s face is anthropomorphic without being human.
I asked Jackowski why Boston Dynamics decided to skew this relatively non-human version with this version of its robot. “Well, he’s not human,” he said. “It gives a false first impression of the robot pretending to be something it is not.”
He added that in the early days of humans, especially, robots would not have anything resembling human intelligence. People should look at it and see it for what it is – a tool to perform tasks safely and efficiently.
In fact, most of the design decisions were made to keep Atlas as simple, scalable, and secure as possible, Jakosky said. I point out that there is some irony in thinking of a humanoid robot as simple, given the complexity of the technology and development process to bring Atlas to life.
The key to making it simple, Jackowski said, is to have a strong enough understanding of the technology “to accomplish the complex thing of building a human-like robot,” but then be able to take it apart and understand that you can use fewer computers and motors in it and still achieve the same results.
It is essential for Boston Dynamics that the Atlas system is perceived as simple. After all, he is a general-purpose human being, who may eventually be sent everywhere to perform all kinds of roles. Jackowski calls him “the absolute specialist.”
Atlas’s strength and reformability set him apart from other humanoids.
Simplicity aside, there are aspects of Atlas that Jackowski believes set him apart from the other humanoids on the show. “The repairability of this robot is very good,” he said. “The uptime is very good. And the power is like nothing else.”
From working in Hyundai manufacturing plants, Atlas’s career path is eventually to graduate into many of the same industrial environments that Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot operates in, before moving to bus tables in the service industry and eventually into the home. Jackowski said the robot will evolve from time to time. However, this may be an early glimpse of the type of human who will eventually be our housemate.
This is a bit far-fetched, and it’s probably for the best. As I stared at Atlas, who I believe was about the same height as my husband, my feeling was that although I liked Atlas, I still wasn’t ready to move on to him.