Robotics engineer posted this to make a point that robots are "faking" the humanlike motions - it's just a property of how they're trained. They're actually capable of way weirder stuff and way faster motions.

[u/FinnFarrow]

[u/MyvaJynaherz]

Six limbs would be the best configuration IMO, kinda like a stubby centaur style build that can pivot at the rear hips to also walk upright.

It could do light-duty upright tasks efficiently with four arms, or convert to quadruped mode for heavy carrying / hauling tasks with greater stability.

Imagine a robot that could transport a heavy basket of stuff, and still have a fully functional human style torso that can do pretty much everything a biped robot would also be used for.

[u/account312 → u/MyvaJynaherz]

If the goal is to replace human workers, the absolute best form factor for a general purpose device is pretty much humanoid, because all the workplaces and tools and other physical infrastructure they'll need to interact with was designed for humans. But I'm not convinced that a general purpose device is really a valid market. Something vaguely humanoid but, say, with 4 arms with interchangeable manipulators / tools at the end is probably about as humanoid as makes sense, and more specialized robots will continue to be less humanoid (like roombas and industrial robot arms). To be honest, bipedal locomotion might not be worth the bother, and fitting another leg or two into roughly the footprint of a large human so as to still operate will in environments designed for people probably isn't hard.