I’ve spent much of my life building robots. From NAO and Pepper to Mirokai, one question has stayed with me: What place should robots have in our world? I don’t believe their future is simply to imitate or replace humans. I believe we’re creating a new kind of Other — a synthetic presence with its own story. A way to improve our experience of life. Sometime I’m calling this Synthetic Otherness. Here, I’ll share what I’ve learned building robots, challenge some assumptions about AI and humanoids, and explore what it means to coexist with intelligent machines. The future of robotics should be more than useful. It should be wonderful.