Teddy Warner, just 19, is a teen founder rethinking the emotional side of machines. His startup, Intempus, aims to give robots something they’ve never had before: a human-like physiological state.
By this, he hopes to help people understand and trust robots more easily. This sounds futuristic, but for Warner, it’s personal.
He grew up in a machinist shop, and robotics was part of his childhood. Now, he’s building a company that makes robots move and react in ways that feel deeply human.
AI Body Language
Intempus doesn’t focus on giving robots faces. Instead, it teaches them to express emotions through movement, how they shift their torso or move their arms.
According to Warner, humans and even animals send important signals through subtle body motion.
Think about how a dog’s body changes when it’s excited. Or how you know someone is nervous just by the way they move.
“Humans pick up on intent without thinking,” Warner said. “It’s not always about words or facial expressions.
Bottom line is we read movements. If robots can move more like us, we’ll understand them better.”
The B Step
Most robots today follow a simple pattern. They see something (observation), then act (action). But Warner says something is missing in between.
He calls it the “B step”, a physiological state. This “state” is what helps humans and animals respond to the world in context.
It includes emotions like stress or calmness. Without it, robots can seem cold or unpredictable.
“If we want AI to think like us, it can’t skip the B step,” Warner explained. “That step makes our behavior understandable to others. It’s what gives humans rhythm, emotion, and intuition.”
Lie Detectors and Heart Sensors
Warner’s search for the B step began with fMRI data. It didn’t work because the brain was too complex. Then, a friend suggested a lie detector.
That was the breakthrough. Lie detectors track sweat to measure stress, and Warner used that data to build early emotional models for robots. Soon after, he expanded into other metrics that helped form an “emotional composition”:
- Heart rate
- Skin temperature
- Blood flow through skin vessels (photoplethysmography)
These biological signals formed a digital layer that mimics how humans feel and react.
Backed by Thiel, Built Alone
Intempus launched in September 2024 after spending four months on research, mostly working solo.
His big break came when he joined the Thiel Fellowship, a competitive program that gives $200,000 to young founders who drop out of school to build companies.
With no full-time team yet, Warner designed the tech, built prototypes, and signed seven enterprise partners.
Emotional Robots
Right now, Intempus focuses on retrofitting existing robots, but Warner isn’t ruling out building new ones from scratch.
He imagines a future where robots walk into a room, and people instantly understand their intent. Happy robot? Calm robot? Angry robot? All clear from how it moves.
“If I can build something that makes people feel what a robot is feeling, without a single word, then I’ve done my job,” he said.
