For decades, technologists have fantasised about the ultimate prize: a humanoid robot, available to consumers and industry, which can perform a range of humanlike tasks. The recent AI moment has reignited those aspirations, with everyone from Tesla to Apple – and a handful of ambitious startups – either openly or secretly working on humanoid robot projects.

In this ep we round up the rumour mill, and talk about what these things could actually be useful for, and why they're suddenly everywhere. (In spirit, if not actuality.)