Recent developments in artificial intelligence have renewed in terest in humanoid robots, which are increasingly portrayed as potential substitutes for human labor-despite their clear technological immaturity for realworld applications. This contribution questions the symbolic de sign choice to endow robots with deceptively realistic human features and examines its impact on how we perceive human work. Building on broader sociopolitical debates around labor, power, and technological agency, I ar gue that designing robots to emulate human traits perpetuates a technocra tic vision of progress-one that prioritizes centralized control and efficiency over human empowerment and ultimately seeks to render human labor obsolete. In response to the pressing challenges facing today's industries, I advocate for a functional approach to technology design-one that centers on human-machine collaboration to foster more resilient, adaptable, and inclusive production systems.
Sarah Dégallier Rochat (2025) studied this question.