After all, we've seen more funny videos of robots dropping plates out of dishwashers and taking 10 minutes to open and close a refrigerator door. And let's not even mention them trying to cook or play soccer.

However, Shanghai robotics startup DroidUp (also known as Zhuoyide) has stepped things up a gear or five, which is certainly worth covering considering it expects the new realistic humanoid to be rolled out this year. The model known as Moya was unveiled during a launch at Shanghai's Zhangjiang Robotics Valley where many of China's emerging humanoid developers are clustered.

Here, the company launched what it calls "a beautifully designed and expressive bionic robot" that is touted as "the world's first highly bionic robot that deeply integrates human aesthetics and advanced humanoid movement."

Moya may be best introduced by video, not words, courtesy of Shanghai Eye, part of the Shanghai Media Group.

"Based on a modular bionic platform architecture, Moya can be flexibly configured with different gender characteristics and appearances," a DroidUp spokesperson stated (this has been translated to English). "Its highly customizable bionic head can delicately express a wide range of emotions, from joy and anger to sorrow and happiness, with natural grace in its gaze. Equipped with the Zhuoyide cerebellar motor control model, its walking and turning movements are smooth and elegant, completely breaking away from the traditional 'steel image' of humanoid robots."

Part of the pivot away from the "steel image" robot design involves giving Moya temperature control to mimic a human body, as well as the softness to replicate real skin and fat and muscle beneath it. She even has a rib cage.

While the makers claim Moya has 92% human-like walking accuracy, that 8% shortfall is noticeable; her movement is uncannily like my own if I've ever had to walk in heels. But walking isn't her strength, anyway – that would be the way she interacts with humans, maintaining eye contact, smiling, nodding and expressing emotions with the kind of subtle facial muscle movements we do without being conscious of it a lot of the time.

She's able to interact in real time to people facing her thanks to a camera behind her eyes, which combines with AI to enable her to make those human-like "micro expressions."