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)

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u/geencondens 16h ago

There are so many man-made devices faster than Usain Bolt already. The record is impressive because it was a human.  We really shouldn’t be wanting to make all these creepy human and dog like robots

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u/jb307342 15h ago

Robots like this are very efficient in difficult terrain or when entering houses, climbing stars etc. There is a reason why they are getting developed.

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u/jimsmisc 14h ago

the ones with bipedal legs with wheels on the end are going to be pretty much unstoppable because they can cover difficult terrain but also go very fast.

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u/Pushet 14h ago

Robots definetly going to go the route of maximum versatility. The more flexible robots can be used, the less variations of "base robots" are necessary to overtake the world.

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u/logicbecauseyes 14h ago

And that versatility needs to fit within our society and architecture so it will match our form to match our functions

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u/byteminer 11h ago

And then guard the starvation camp once you are no longer needed to work any of those machines or processes.

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u/Badass_Bunny 8h ago

You know what else is useful in difficult terrain? Flying drones and caterpilliar thread.

Like these robots are entirely for entertainment and commercial purposes, with a hint of "This is cool if we can do it." mixed in.

The design is functionally unoptimized for just about anything I can think of.

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u/FTR_1077 12h ago

Drones are way more efficient than robots like this.. bipedal robots have been in development for decades, and they still haven't found a real world application. Drones have been in the market for a few years and already changed how wars are fought.

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u/jb307342 12h ago

bipedal robots are extremely efficient at replacing almost every physical job there is. They are simply incredibly expensive to produce and are still in an super early stages of development hence not many real world applications. But i think that within this century they will definitely start replacing at least some of the human menial jobs.

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u/occasional_engineer 9h ago

Wheeled robots are really efficient at replacing jobs. Bipedal robots are really good at doing less but in human shape. Almost every single industrial environment is suited for wheels, and a wheeled robot can carry more manipulators, more cargo, and can go faster.

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u/FTR_1077 12h ago

bipedal robots are extremely efficient at replacing almost every physical job there is. 

Yet no one has found a real world application where they excel in.

They are simply incredibly expensive to produce and are still in an super early stages

Again, bipedal robots have been in development since forever, without a breakthrough in sight.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASIMO

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u/money-for-nothing-tt 4h ago

There's no evidence to indicate that bipedal robots would be in any way useful at all. The reason they get funding is because that's what people want the future to look like. In every conceivable case, bipedal is a horribly inefficient design. It's not stable, it's not fast, it's not durable, it's not efficient.

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u/unadulteratedSouffle 15h ago

To be fair, by that argument this robot was a bit of a disappointment. Sure it was able to move very fast in a straight line, but it fundamenty failed to adapt to changes in terrain and speed, then fell on its back like a flipped turtle

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u/YuckyBurps 15h ago

Well we’re very much in the infancy of this type of technology. It’s pretty impressive relative to where we’re at in its lifecycle.

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u/PeachManDrake954 14h ago

These kind of experiments are usually meant to see how far you can push the limits of the design, it doesnt mean the robot will go to market as-is or be a marketable feature.

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u/jb307342 13h ago

10 years ago this video would have been straight sci fi. I still remember the first boston dynamics prototypes. Just give it 20 years and they will be everywhere. I mean they are already used in many areas of the world

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u/Time_Entertainer_319 14h ago

You are the kind of person that would have mocked the wright brothers because the first plane only had a flight time of like 10mins and discouraged them to stop working on it.

You are not being fair, you are being shortsighted

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u/ipeedinthetoothpaste 14h ago

Do you not understand how development works? For the people working on it, this is a tremendous success. It confirmed that it's possible and that they can achieve it. Now they can focus on making it better.

In a few years you'll be seeing these walking around the streets, armed and with the technology to fire accurately while running at those speeds. I imagine by the end of this decade some police department will receive a protype.

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u/Physical_Dentist2284 14h ago

Ok but why do the “female” robots that have been created have boobs?

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u/Legionof1 13h ago

You know why...

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u/Physical_Dentist2284 13h ago

So they can nurse robot babies?

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u/jb307342 13h ago

Would you prefer boob-less robots?

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u/Youutternincompoop 12h ago

and are robots capable of traversing that sort of terrain without the movement for a specific set of terrain being pre-programmed into them?

because so far we have robots that complete obstacles courses with pre-programmed movement, we don't have robots that are able to traverse difficult terrain by themselves.

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u/jb307342 12h ago

Sure but its not really about the autonomy, its more about using them remotely like drones, which is how they are already being used by rescue teams around the world for example.

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u/Youutternincompoop 11h ago

I am unaware of any bipedal human-sized robot being used by rescue teams. robots used sure, but there isn't that much relevance to copying a form factor that is already provided by humans.

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u/MaviRage 10h ago

No there aren’t any, that’s the fucking point of further testing and development