Happy German worker robot smiles when assigned extra work

Sometimes there's a pretty thin line between happiness and smugness, and this smiling new workerbot from Germany's Fraunhofer Institute reacts in ways that just might rub its human coworkers the wrong way.

The pi4-workerbot has fingertip sensitivity that lets it perform complicated factory assembly jobs with ease, and it displays its sense of satisfaction by smiling when it feels busy and occupied. A bored expression means that it wants extra work, and best of all, pi4 works on every shift and never needs a coffee break.

So how will pi4's human counterparts continue to compete? Perhaps a course in robot maintenance and repair would be a good idea.