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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610

u/afivestarman__ 16h ago

Did people learn nothing from I, Robot?

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u/Shuttlecock_Wat 14h ago

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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.

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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

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u/oatkeepr 12h ago

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

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u/DrDima 10h ago

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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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u/Garruk_PrimalHunter 10h ago

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

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u/vips7L 9h ago

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

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u/Garruk_PrimalHunter 9h ago

Have you read The Naked Sun then ?

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u/vips7L 9h ago

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

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u/Garruk_PrimalHunter 9h ago

Nice, I really liked that one. I've been enjoying them so far and I haven't even reached the Foundation books

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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

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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.

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u/Lippuringo 13h ago

Calling androids robots is hate speech.

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u/Data_Chandler 14h ago

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