Hajra Naz
Teddy Warner, 19, has always had a passion for robotics. Growing up, his family worked in the industry, and he spent much of his high school years in a machinist shop, learning hands-on. Now, he’s launching his own robotics company, Intempus, with a big goal: to make robots feel more human.
Intempus is developing technology that gives existing robots emotional expression. Adding human-like reactions through body movement makes these robots easier to understand and interact with. The goal is to help people feel more comfortable around robots and better predict how they’ll move. This behavior can also generate new data to help improve AI training.
“These robots won’t show emotions with faces,” Warner said, “but through how they move arms, torsos, posture.” He explained that humans (and even animals) pick up a lot of subconscious signals from motion, not words or facial expressions.
The idea for Intempus came while Warner was working at Midjourney, an AI research lab. There, he noticed a problem: many AI systems are trained to understand the world using models that rely only on cause and effect. But humans and animals process things differently. We have a physiological state:
- Stress
- Excitement
- Tiredness.
Robots don’t.
Robots go straight from seeing something to acting. Warner said.
“Humans have an in-between step a physiological state that shapes how we respond. If we want robots to understand the world like we do, they need that middle step too.”
To explore this idea, Warner began testing ways to track human physiology. He first tried using fMRI brain scans, but they weren’t practical. Then a friend suggested using a polygraph, which measures things like sweat levels. That’s when he started getting results.
Warner said.
“I was surprised by how quickly I could use sweat data to train a model that gives robots an emotional ‘feel’ based on that input,”
Since then, he’s expanded beyond sweat data. He now uses things to measure blood flow in the skin, like
- Body temperature
- Heart rate
- Photoplethysmography
Warner launched Intempus in September 2024. He spent the first four months focused solely on research, and now he’s split his time between developing the tech and meeting with customers. So far, he’s already landed seven enterprise robotics partners.
Intempus also participates in the Thiel Fellowship, a program supported by Peter Thiel that awards $200,000 to young entrepreneurs who choose to launch businesses rather than continue their education.
The next stage, according to Warner, is to assemble a team and begin testing the technology on actual users. Right now, Intempus focuses on upgrading existing robots, but it isn’t ruling out building its own emotionally intelligent robots in the future. He said.
“I want people to walk into a room, see a robot, and immediately feel that it’s joyful or calm or excited.” “If I can make that emotional connection clear without needing words, then I’ve done my job. And I think I can prove that in the next four to six months.”
