I agree with the overall conclusion and direction of this article, but this is a dreadful argument - pointless semantics.

If someone manipulates a puppet so it moves in a way that humans will perceive as dancing, we say, "They made the puppet dance."

Do you yell out in a movie theatre, "This isn't an actual fish dancing - an animator designed it to move that way!"?

There are many objections to that stupid ad: here are two.

1. Dance in America as an artform was already on the ropes before COVID-19, mainly due to the exponential increase in real estate costs in major urban areas and the general looting of society by the 0.1%. And now? I don't even want to think.

It would be much better to spend that $250k or whatever on actual dance troupes on the hopes they might survive.

2. These robots are funded by the military and are intended to be weapons. Making them dance is an obscenity.