Or in other words, Asimovian robots, minus everything that made them useful or interesting.
Humanoid body designs are actually bloody stupid for accomplishing anything other than emulating a human. What you really want is giant spiders.
I am actually not joking. Me and my biologist girlfriend have discussed the most practical shape for the unholy soldiers of a robot army. If you actually want to make use of robots, something like a spider is what you want: limbs to maintain balance and provide propulsion, some of which can also be swapped out to function as prehensile grabbers.
That kind of thing is already being done today by folks at DARPA, Boston Dynamics, blah blah blah. They're just very costly right now, and quite stupid to boot.
What you really want is intelligent giant spiders.
I still don't get it. If you start with an Asimov robot, then take away the anthropomorphism and the sentience, what remains that isn't found in a modern car factory?
Ability to move independently, with their own power source, be able to navigate our environment, homes, use our tools and do our bidding, following simple commands. It is likely that some DNA-engineered chimp/machine hybrid will probably become the first real robot exposing the folly of today's mechanical / electrical attempts in much the same way as we now know that the Analytical Machine was unrealistic with 19th century clockwork technology.
Ability to move independently, with their own power source, be able to navigate our environment, homes, use our tools and do our bidding, following simple commands
Apart from "use our tools", that's Roomba+Siri. Honda's "Asimo" is coming quite close.
