WIRED has been about a lot of things over the course of its 25 years. Hacking. International intrigue. Kingpins of the dark web. Artificial intelligence (or lack thereof). And now more than ever, robots. Robots everywhere. We're in the midst of a fundamental shift in robotic technology, as sensors get cheaper and algorithms get better and hardware gets ever more impressive. And the machines thusly proliferate.

So to celebrate not only the arrival of our new robot overlords, but this humble magazine's quarter century of all-around awesomeness, for our WIRED25 event in San Francisco we convened what may be the first-ever Robot Petting Zoo. Here, enthusiasts of all ages met and, yes, pet some of our favorite robots—from SynTouch's digital fingertips that can themselves pet things, to the Hexa's insect-like crawler, to the ever-friendly Pepper humanoid. Check them out in the gallery above, and maybe consider joining us for WIRED50 in 2043. That is, if the machines have left any of us standing.

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