For any company that's eagerly eyeing up a future workforce of office robots, they might want to put that plan on ice as a video of a robotics company's latest creation went viral after it showed a complete failure of a simple task.

The hilarious clip from an outtake of a TED talk shows a bipedal robot from Boston Dynamics – the company formerly owned by Google which created robotic dogs for the US military – attempting the simple task of load a box onto a rack. Well, simple for a human.

What follows is the robot making a complete hash of the whole thing as it carries the box and excitedly stomps towards the standing rack of about 3ft high.

As it arrives it barges into it and repeatedly bashes another box on the rack, knocking off its lid as it struggles to put the item on top of it.

The robot then drops the box, sending it crashing to the floor, then grabs the rack and pulls it over as it stumbles backwards then falls to the ground like a reveller at closing time.

It was posted to a Reddit forum and soon found its way to Twitter where users reacted with a mixture of sympathy, relief and schadenfreude.

But why do we find it so funny?

Scientists claim that seeing a robot, which is designed to be infallible, fail and fall over makes it more relatable – in essence, more human.

Watching the calamitous clip will give anyone who is worried about robots taking our jobs or taking over the world some hope it won't happen anytime soon. In fact, it's not been the most progressive of time for robotics lately as Boston Dynamics' humanoid Atlas robot fell off the stage during a demonstration showing how advanced the latest creation was.

Also, a robot security guard in the US was found face down in a shopping mall water feature after it accidentally missed the step, prompting members of the public to jokingly claim it had committed suicide. If this clip has tickled you, here are some more robots making complete cock-ups in a robot fail compilation.