Giving Robots a Virtual “B’ Step”: How Intempus is Teaching Machines to Feel

 New AI Startup Giving Robots Virtual ...

Giving Robots a Virtual “B’ Step”: How Intempus is Teaching Machines to Feel


A young entrepreneur is on a mission to teach robots how to feel—or at least simulate it. At 19, Teddy Warner, the founder of Intempus, is retrofitting machines with digital systems that mimic human heart rate, body temperature, sweating, and more. The goal? Help robots emulate emotions like joy, stress, or anxiety.

This article explores:

  • The origin of the “physiological state” concept

  • How Intempus builds virtual heartbeats and sweat sensors

  • Why humans understand intentions best through body language

  • Ethical, technical, and cultural implications

  • Future applications and challenges

1. The Missing “B’ Step in Robotics

From a human perspective, every action is grounded in feelings—surprise, stress, excitement—which trigger physical reactions. Yet robots traditionally skip this essential middle phase.

“Obsess → Physiological State → Action”

Robots typically operate as:
Observation (A) → Action (C).
Humans, however, go A → B (physiology/emotion) → C. We don’t just react; we feel.

Teddy Warner, drawing from his time at Midjourney, explains that world‑model AIs lack this “B step.” They miss the subtle feedback loop essential for intuitive, adaptive behavior (techcrunch.com, bestofai.com).

2. The Vision: Emotional Robots Through Biometrics

Warner founded Intempus in September 2024 to fill that gap—teaching robots to simulate physiology and express emotions via movement.

Image 1 shows the kind of retrofitted robot Intempus aims to upgrade, displaying emotion through posture and motion.

3. What Is Involved? The Biometric Toolkit

Warner’s team uses real human data to train models that give robots emotion-like reactions. Key elements include:

  1. Sweat / Skin Conductance

    • Captured via polygraph machines; a proxy for stress levels (bestofai.com, autogpt.net, techcrunch.com).

  2. Heart Rate

    • Monitored with wearable devices to measure excitement or calm.

  3. Body Temperature

    • Provides insight into inflammatory or emotional states.

  4. Blood Volume (via photoplethysmography)

    • Indicates stress or relaxation through microvascular changes (autogpt.net, techcrunch.com).

Using this data, Intempus creates an emotional composition—an internal state representation modeled from sweat, heart, temperature, and blood flow patterns.

4. Kinetic Expression: “Let the Body Talk”

Warner emphasizes that emotion comes through more than words or facial cues.

  • Humans interpret torso, arms, shoulders—subtle changes—instantly ⇢ robots can mimic these for meaning (techcrunch.com).

  • For example: a robotic arm might tense slightly when stressed or move softly when calm.

  • Even non-humanoid machines—a vacuum, factory arm—can project emotion through movement (inc.com).

These gestures make robots feel less mechanical and more relatable.

5. The Startup’s Journey and Early Milestones

  • September 2024: Teddy Warner launches Intempus as a solo venture (techcrunch.com).

  • First 4 months: Research and model training using sweat data (techcrunch.com).

  • Polygraphs and biometric capture: Tested on himself and close collaborators (techcrunch.com).

  • Expanding sensors: Added heart rate, temperature, and blood volume metrics (techcrunch.com).

  • January 2025: Intempus officially incorporated (inc.com).

  • Á seven enterprise partners already signed letters of intent (techcrunch.com).

  • Thiel Fellowship win: $200,000 funding, joining elite cohort of young innovators (techcrunch.com).

“I have a bunch of robots, and they run a bunch of emotions,” he says.

This bold statement is now a roadmap—test units are in the works, and human trials are planned within months .

6. Why It Matters: Humans Communicate through Feelings

  • Evolutionarily, emotional states aid communication: stress signals threat; joy attracts play.

  • Emotions provoke instinctive empathy in social interactions—our brains are wired to read motion and physiology.

  • Robots embedded with these cues could feel more predictable, trustworthy, and easy to relate to.

Warner critiques facial or verbal-only robots as less intuitive—torso and arm cues are bastions of nonverbal meaning (techcrunch.com, insidetelecom.com).

7. Possible Applications of Emotional Robots

7.1 Companion and Social Robots

  • Elderly-care robots could signal distress or desire for interaction via body cues.

  • Child companion bots might show playful gestures—generating emotional bonds.

7.2 Service and Customer Robots

  • Shop robots could communicate when they’re “busy,” reducing frustration.

  • Airport bots might “relax” when idle, and “attend” when needed.

7.3 Industrial Modeling & AI Training

  • Emotional states become part of world training data, improving AI decisions.

  • Robots can indicate internal stress (error or overload), enabling timely human intervention.

7.4 Therapeutic and Emotional Support

  • Robots simulating calm may help people manage stress or anxiety during therapy.

8. Challenges Ahead

8.1 Is This Real Emotion—or Just Simulation?

  • Critics argue this is mimicry, not genuine experience.

  • Counter: humans care about perceived emotion; authenticity may not be essential.

8.2 Data Accuracy and Calibration

  • How much emotion is too much? Response tuning is critical.

  • Must avoid misinterpretation—or “creepy” robot gestures.

8.3 Privacy and Data Ethics

  • Collecting biometric data raises issues—who owns it? How secure?

8.4 Robotics Integration

  • Each robot is different; retrofitting varied hardware requires custom engineering.

9. Cultural and Ethical Impacts

9.1 Humanizing Machines

  • As robots feel more human-like, we treat them as agents and companions.

  • This social shift could enhance human-robot teamwork—but also raise dependency concerns.

9.2 Manipulation and Trust

  • Robots that appear distressed may solicit undue empathy or compliance from humans.

  • Must guard against emotional manipulation.

9.3 Workplace Boundaries

  • Will emotional robots hold the same workplace privileges as humans?

  • Ethical norms may need reinterpretation.

10. Mapping the Path Forward

10.1 Short-Term Objectives

  • Integrate biometrics into existing robot platforms.

  • Begin controlled trials to assess human responses.

  • Tune expression models across tasks.

10.2 Medium-Term Goals

  • Build full prototypes that walk into rooms demonstrating emotions.

  • Expand team with engineering and ethics experts.

10.3 Long-Term Vision

  • Launch custom emotionally intelligent robots.

  • Broaden biometric repertoire to include vocal tone and gait.

  • Develop use-specific standards for emotional expression in human-robot contexts.

11. SEO-Friendly Summary & Keyword Focus

Primary keyword: Emotional robots with physiological state
Related keywords: robots with heart rate, biometric robot emotions, Intempus Teddy Warner, Thiel Fellowship robotics

Meta description suggestion: “Intempus, led by Teddy Warner, equips robots with virtual heartbeats, sweat, and heat signals—building machines that appear to feel stress, joy, and fear.”

12. Final Thoughts

At just 19, Teddy Warner is charting new territory: robots that feel like us—not with mood circuits, but using our biological signals. Intempus’s promise of emotion-infused robotics is part of a deeper shift—bridging the gap between feeling and machine.

By embracing physiology, robots may become truly intuitive partners—truly earning their place in homes, hospitals, and workplaces. But careful regulation, transparency, and trust-building will define whether emotional computing becomes empathetic or intrusive.

Emotional machines are no longer science fiction. Soon, your next robotic coworker—or companion—might pulse, shift color, tense, or soften in exactly the way that tells you what it feels. And in doing so, it may teach us what it means to be truly understood.



Open Your Mind!!!

Source: Techcrunch

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