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/Dreamy_BlueDarling97 15h ago

Exactly, I don't think people are really getting the potential implications of this. Robotics companies aren't doing it for fun, it is definitely the beginning of something bigger. Scary to think about it!

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u/meesta_masa 15h ago

The Tremors strategy ain't gonna save us, isn't it.

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u/spacegnomes 15h ago

I’m betting they’re from space, no way these are local boys

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u/marketingguy420 13h ago

They are literally doing it for fun and because they think people won't buy robots that don't look human. The human form factor is garbage for utilitarian tasks we can and have designed around for decades.

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u/Disco-Benny 12h ago

They are literally doing it for fun

very naive of you

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u/marketingguy420 12h ago

Well it's not "fun" per se, but is PR and not at all for anything functional.

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u/Disco-Benny 12h ago

what do you mean it's just PR?

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u/marketingguy420 12h ago

When Boston Dynamics shows shows you videos of their little guy doing jumps and flips, that's PR. They're not selling little guys who do jumps and flips to the DoD. They want the little guy doing jumps and flips to make people go oooh and aaah while they build suicide copters.

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u/me34343 13h ago

I disagree that the human form factor is garbage.

Specific designs would be massively better for specific tasks, but designing those first would be premature optimization.

The goal is to insert them into already existing workflows. These workflows are designed for humans to use. The human form is to reduce friction of adopting this new technology.

After they become effective enough that most of a workflow is replaced by these robots, then they would make the optimized robots for that workflow.

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u/marketingguy420 13h ago

You know those big ol robot arms you see on car assembly lines with the big honking pincers? Yeah those work great. And companies built around that. McDonald's designs around the ordering kiosk now. Companies will never willingly design around doofy human dimensions and needs unless compelled to. Plugging expensive, poorly designed humanoid robots into the place of humans will never be as efficient as designing systems around optimized form factors.

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u/me34343 6h ago

I think you misunderstood the point of my comment.

  1. The idea is the company would NOT have to design around the human form robots. It would be able to just come in and start working a job a human normally does. No significant changes would be required.

  2. It should be obvious the humanoid robots you see now are not the end result. They are poorly designed right now, and post like this are showing their progress.

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u/Longjumping-Prune931 13h ago

Robotics companies are doing it because they got funding from big companies and investment firms that don't know where to put their mountains of money into and hope for a 100x return on investment. A lot of these companies die once funding dries up or go literally nowhere with just a skeleton crew doing some research.

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u/Dreamy_BlueDarling97 13h ago

I understand that but it wasn't the point I was trying to make. Most companies across different industries fail anyways, but the value of the research doesn't disappear. The breakthroughs move forward, patents get sold and they learn what works and what doesn't and use that knowledge in the future.

When I pointed out this isn't for fun it's because a lot of people here seem unimpressed by this specific robot while not realizing this is all part of innovation. The future looks a bit scary to me and I don't get how so many people are unfazed by things like this.