Can machine bodies express the same ideas as human bodies? This question has been explored in my lab through embodied practice, study of theoretical underpinnings of computer science, and experimental quantification of robotic system capacity. The figure below, from an in progress work (https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.05365), shows the dearth in external complexity of extant robotic systems over the past 15 years (x-axis: internal complexity as measured by number of transistors in on-board CPU; y-axis: external complexity as measured by possible poses). As a result of this work, I do not think that machines can express the same breadth of behavior as natural systems.
