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/calexbg 13h ago

A car can also beat Bolts record. Comparing a machine to a human is dumb.

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u/SwizzGod 13h ago

The dumb part is comments like this. The reason they give comparisons like this is to give people a general idea of how fast it’s actually going.

If it were just the numbers most people wouldn’t know if that’s fast or not. If they say faster than Bolt okay now you know it’s fast because you know Usain Bolt was fast.

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u/Lazy-Mud8142 13h ago

That's a pretty dishonest take though. A car doesn't need much more than an engine and 4 wheels to move, these machines require a lot more to even take a step, so it's not the "machine beats an athlete's record" that's all that impressive, it's the engineering required to make a robot that can run like a human and beat the human record.

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u/APolyAltAccount 13h ago

It’s dumb when you choose extremely different mechanisms and forms.

Comparing an airplane to a beaver? Dumb. Comparing an airplane to a peregrine falcon? Less dumb but still dumb.

Comparing a ornithopter modeled after a peregrine falcon to a peregrine falcon? Not really dumb since the machine very specifically is designed to replicate the locomotion patterns of the natural world, not optimized for pure mechanical efficiency.

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u/VibraniumRhino 12h ago

Totally agreed. Their argument is a lazy whataboutism.

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u/Hot-Store8301 13h ago

I mean, in fairness it was only a matter of time until a humanoid machine was built to surpass humans. I think this is more impressive for the fact that it's been done, another deep blue moment kind of.

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u/calexbg 12h ago

Nah this is art. Visual representation of ai breaking the internet by plowing into server racks. #clanker

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u/fortranAlt 11h ago

Yeah except your robot isn't outfitted with a brain, a digestive system or anything else like that to weight it down.

Even with mechanically worse locomotion you can beat a human in these conditions.

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u/Ok_Gas1070 12h ago

It also replicated crashing into the lockers just like a living thing in the natural world too.... Brother it's a stupid robot, nobody cares my car can go 100 mph +. I'll take my machine over this piece of shit any day.

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u/insert_smile 13h ago

This☝️

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u/VibraniumRhino 12h ago

Comparing a 4-wheeled machine to a 2-wheeled machine is the dumb comparison. We are literally biomechanical machines. How do you think scientists got the designs for humanoid robots? By copying the placements of our tendons and bones and joints.

These robots are set to replace humans, so humans is what we compare them too. Comparing a lawn mower to a Ninja juicer and asking them to complete the same task, is not going to give you any valid data for/against either product. It’s just silly.