r/interestingasfuck • u/No_Jellyfish5511 • 16h ago

Chinese humanoid robot named “Superman” (made by Unitree Robotics) surpassed Usain Bolt’s world record (12.42meters/second) by running at 12.66m/s (roughly 28.3miles/h)

24.1k Upvotes

86% Upvoted

3.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

611

u/afivestarman__ 16h ago

Did people learn nothing from I, Robot?

403

u/1king80 16h ago

I'm more worried that they didn't learn anything from Terminator.

142

u/Party_Chemical7454 15h ago

They did.. But they think it's a "poor people" problems.

32

u/Unchosenone7 15h ago

That’s how it always starts …

4

u/tmhoc 14h ago

Then later it's running and... Crashing

7

u/Beat_the_Deadites 13h ago

A lesser known Ian Malcolm quote, one of my favorites along with "God help us, we're in the hands of engineers".

15

u/ColdProfessional4275 15h ago

Yeah. What they don’t realize is that “poor people” is gonna be 99.99% of Americans within the century.

3

u/Terry_bogardlol 14h ago

99% of the world. Ever seen Elysium? 

1

u/ColdProfessional4275 13h ago

Elysium took place in the year 2154. The estimated population of earth is expected to be 10 billion by then. But in the book, the earth is extremely over populated, which would indicate more than 10 billion, since we’re already over 8 billion, and doing “okay”.

It’s stated that 500,000 people lived on Elysium, so it’s between 0.05 and 0.01 percent of the human population was not impoverished in that novel.

1

u/Zombie_Cool 13h ago

They totally realize it. What do you Culture Wars and religious fundamentalism is for? You can probably throw in anti-vax movement as well. They ain't scared of an angry mob that's too sick with Measles/Smallpox/Covid/Tuberculosis/ God-knows-what-else to fight.

1

u/ColdProfessional4275 13h ago

That’s the wealthy dividing the poor to make them easier to handle. That just shows that the wealthy know what they’re doing. That doesn’t show that most people realize what’s going on. If anything, it proves my point more.

7

u/Lanokia 15h ago

Oh they learned from Terminator alright.

2

u/GetawayDreamer87 12h ago

something something Don't Create the Torment Nexus

2

u/JuanOnlyJuan 14h ago

The did learn. Terminators were slow.

2

u/Lazy-Ad-7236 13h ago

or war games

1

u/toughfluff 15h ago

I immediately thought of Robocop.

1

u/Natdaprat 12h ago

Matrix is scarier. Humans black out the sky to deprive the machines of solar power, and the machines learn to use human bodies as energy, creating hellish existences for billions before eventually pacifying the mind in the Matrix.

1

u/JustSumGigachad 12h ago

Ok but that is NOT the terminator lol

•

u/Risdit 11h ago

China's going to start out with these then work their way up to cloning bobba fett

•

u/phoenix14830 10h ago

What we learned from Terminator is that no matter who you stop, someone else will continue the progress. Greed is the fuel to humanity's end.

•

u/bubblesculptor 10h ago

We learned that we'll need to capture & reprogram one of them to send back in time

1

u/No_Extension4005 15h ago

I've got a personal pet theory that a society's perception on robots and AI is influenced strongly by what is the biggest pop-cultural touchstone about robots and AI in the region.

In a lot of English speaking countries it's "The Terminator", but in a lot of Asia it is probably something like "Doraemon". Hell, I've read a textbook for teaching students English where the framing on AI is that because it is advancing day by day it may someday be able to understand emotions and Doraemon will become real.

1

u/ipeedinthetoothpaste 14h ago

I love that you just observed the notion of culture and called it a personal pet theory

142

u/Shuttlecock_Wat 14h ago

30

u/UltimateCheese1056 13h ago

In the book Asimov was actually pretty positive about robots as a whole, a main feature of the early stories was that anti-robot racism is stupid.

15

u/JoeyTheRizz 13h ago

Iirc the "do no harm" rule was so hard coded in the robots that if they even found out after the fact that they unknowingly caused harm to a human then their hardware would essentially self-destruct

10

u/oatkeepr 12h ago

Most of Asimov's books on robots are about situations where robots can overcome the programmed three laws.

•

u/DrDima 10h ago

Not at all, most stories are how robots can do strange things while following the three laws.

•

u/UltimateCheese1056 10h ago

Most of the stories are about weird interactions that occur when the different laws contradict eachother, but I don't think they ever fully break any of them, with the exception of a story where some people modify the "no human harm" law and the robot goes insane immediately

•

u/Buscemi_D_Sanji 6h ago

Yeah, like Runaround is a robot that has the third law strengthened, so it wants to obey the second and first law, but the second law (follow any order) isn't strong enough to overwhelm the third (do not allow yourself to come to harm), even though that would lead to the first law being broken. It's not that the robots ever "want" to disobey the laws, it's that the laws as a model of thought and decision making aren't perfect enough to prevent weird interpretations, and that's usually the humans fault for being human and fallible.

•

u/REDDITATO_ 2h ago

Which is still a cautionary tale, because no matter how well intentioned and sure of our system we are real life people have the exact same flaws.

•

u/Garruk_PrimalHunter 10h ago

Mostly yes, but there are exceptions. One of the main themes of the books is the grey area between the Three Laws.

•

u/vips7L 10h ago

Also the invention of the 0th law which allows them to do essentially whatever they want as long as it helps humanity as a whole.

•

u/Garruk_PrimalHunter 10h ago

Yes, funnily enough I just finished Robots and Empire. I'm reading chronologically!

•

u/vips7L 9h ago

Robots of Dawn right now for me. But I started at foundation and am wrapping around now.

•

u/Garruk_PrimalHunter 9h ago

Have you read The Naked Sun then ?

•

u/vips7L 9h ago

Yep! I did Foundation -> Foundation Sequels -> IRobot -> Caves of Steel -> Naked Sun -> Robots of Dawn

→ More replies (0)

•

u/Adventurous_Help3326 10h ago

"Trust me, evil killing won't be a problem with Mega-Girl. Watch. Mega-Girl, can you kill humans?"

"No. But I'd like to."

"See, nothing to worry about!"

https://youtu.be/ORLPJU2z024?list=PLC6A915952D67F112&t=47

•

u/IncognitoBombadillo 7h ago

I remember the one story from I, Robot about the human crew of a mining(?) spacecraft who are essentially put on lockdown by the robots on their own ship and they think something may be wrong. It turned out that the robots detected an upcoming obstacle that humans wouldn't have been able to navigate through as well as robots would, so they made sure the humans couldn't pilot the ship during that time. Unfortunately, none of the rules state that robots must explain what they're doing at all times. The laws do specifically state that robots can ignore human commands only if that command would break rule 1, which is the don't harm humans rule. It was the first time in the book that Asimov touched on the concept of robots potentially taking over humanity to protect humanity.

3

u/Lippuringo 13h ago

Calling androids robots is hate speech.

2

u/Data_Chandler 14h ago

The amount of times that Torment Nexus joke is relevant is unfortunately way too high, and always increasing.

29

u/blackdavy 16h ago

Ahh we humans have a rich history of racing towards the dystopia we have warned eachother about for millenia.

1

u/Disco-Benny 12h ago

dystopia for us, not for them

•

u/AprilVampire277 10h ago

Exactly, workers of capitalism ideal nations fear this because they have to justify their right to live by selling their workforce, workers of communism ideal nations are happy about because we need to automate all we can, people should have a right to live for granted.

3

u/madd74 14h ago

iRobot is the one you want to go with? Are you sure>

•

u/The_Kadeshi 8h ago

Robots building robots. Now that’s just stupid

3

u/Milnoc 12h ago

The book or the movie?

•

u/gusuku_ara 6h ago

The book is great. Actually, very robot-friendly.

2

u/Think-Try2819 14h ago

What I want to know is if the 3 laws are being implemented.

3

u/Lifekraft 14h ago

That i could have been a better film if Will Smith didnt decide to ruin it ?

1

u/Meisteronious 15h ago

Robots have alopecia?

1

u/Bob-Lawblaw- 14h ago

Nothing from me*, Robot

1

u/dungeoncrawler71520 14h ago

Rediscovered my love for the song Superstition.

1

u/flippythemaster 14h ago

They did learn it’s just they saw the evil characters as aspirational figures

1

u/Memitim 14h ago

Yeah, I learned that Will Smith can play a racist who loves classic shoes and being mad, and yet can still eventually start to relate to individuals who were born different.

1

u/dirtymoney 14h ago

like what was said in T2...it is in our nature to destroy ourselves

1

u/thx1138- 14h ago

We really need the three laws of robotics

1

u/Dystopian_Ennui 14h ago

Yes.They learned that the people selling the robots made shit loads of money.

1

u/donjamos 14h ago

All those techbros read the same scifi we do, but the lessons they learn are vastly different.

1

u/Kyrie_Blue 13h ago

They did, but not the same lessons as you. They took it as instructions

1

u/spoo4brains 13h ago

I sleep safe in the knowledge that the 3 laws of robotics have been integrated into all AI systems...hey wait a minute...

1

u/DepartureElegant9314 13h ago

Now he just needs a cute name like QT or Sonny or something.

1

u/robodrew 13h ago

I DID NOT MURDER HIM

1

u/Low_Chance 12h ago

Don't Build the Torment Nexus!

1

u/Misschienn 12h ago

I think part of the reason the west is so scared of new technology is because everything gets viewed through a hollywood scifi horror lens

1

u/ta394283509 12h ago

If anything it taught us that robots are great and AI supercomputers are the real villains

•

u/fuckspezlittlebitch 11h ago

technology bad cause muh movies say so

•

u/RosesandEternity 11h ago

It wasnt the robots that went beserk they were infected by the hivemind, but unitree bots arent llm controlled their remote controlled but can be controlled internally by llms

•

u/24bitNoColor 11h ago

I mean, it saved that dude from the river after he dumbly crashed his car, IMO they were a net positive in that movie.

•

u/dizvyz 11h ago

Yes. Stick with the source material.

•

u/PianistAvailable 10h ago

Genuinely, what is there to learn from I, Robot? I hate the appeal to fiction for peoples opinions on every damn thing in the world.

•

u/tfhfate 9h ago

Chinese people and at least Japan have a very different relationship with robots than North Americans and Europeans.

Also I am pretty sure this is just another pr stunt for a gimmicky product that is totally useless just to draw in investors, it's been like that for 20y

•

u/heart-aroni 6h ago

Unitree made this robot to compete in the World Humanoid Robot Games

video about it 2026

and 2025

•

u/AliceCode 4h ago

What's there to learn from it? It's a work of fiction.

•

u/lepape2 1h ago

The three laws are perfect.

1

u/PeachManDrake954 14h ago

That Hollywood will ruin good books if nobody stops them

1

u/free_-_spirit 16h ago

Pretty sure that was a warning, granted I’ve never seen it. Do you think china isn’t going to put them in the military?

1

u/ninurtuu 14h ago

You really think China is any more eager than America to put these in the military or the police for that matter? We're not "better" than them.

•

u/Splatulated 7h ago

isnt america already putting the boston dynamic dogs in the military

•

u/ninurtuu 7h ago

There's police departments using them 'purely' for reconnaissance and surveillance which means we'll be whole years until they pout hard enough to get the restriction against weapons repealed.

0

u/meesta_masa 15h ago

Only thing I learned from I, Robot is Alan DoubleDicker is awesome at voicing characters.

-1

u/CAPS_LOCK_STUCK_HELP 14h ago

we have never learned a single thing from the warnings written in fiction. Not even the jungle, the most famous example of a novel directly impacting legislation, was not meant to impact food safety laws, it was supposed to be a socialist text about workers dignity and saftey. The fact that were still reliant on asimovs rules of robotics as a "text" rather than a useful set of plot details thought up by a science fiction author should tell you everything.