he grand green Apennine Mountains fill the windows at the University of Genoa’s Laboratory for Integrated Advanced Robotics, but otherwise it isn’t that different from the other labs: As Europe’s preeminent robotics facility and one of the world’s epicenters of artificial intelligence research, it’s dominated by eggheads staring at monitors. And, of course, there’s an android hanging around the place.

The size and shape of a 3-year-old, RobotCub has two five-fingered hands, each of which will be covered with sensitive artificial skin made of the same stuff as the iPod’s electrostatic touchwheel. It has expressive eyes, a white plastic shell that makes it look like Casper the Friendly Ghost, and a tether that runs from its back like an electronic umbilical cord into an adjacent room, where it connects to a few dozen PCs.

These machines will be charged with running each of RobotCub’s 53 electric motors. They’ll process the sensory information it gathers through its hands and cameras and decide how to move the machine in response. RobotCub might be the size of a child, but its brain fills an entire room.