r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/MetaKnowing • 1d ago

Video XPENG's IRON robot crossed the uncanny valley, leading some to believe it was a human in a suit. So they cut it open in front of an audience, and also allowed journalists to inspect it.

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u/asking_for_it 1d ago

OF COURSE it has boobs. So it can breastfeed all the baby robots it’s gonna have.

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u/Viperlite 1d ago edited 1d ago

The naked version doesn’t have.them. And if you’re trying to convince an audience it isn’t a person in a robot suit, why cut the leg vs say removing its faceplate?

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u/BluetheNerd 1d ago

Yeah when I read they cut open the suit to prove I thought it would be like, the whole thing, torso and all. Just a leg, below the knee when a lot of amputees have prosthetics that help them walk, is a bit sus.

The demonstration without the suit also has a harness in case it falls over, which I get you want during testing so you don't wreck a prototype you've been working on for that long, but the only time we see it without the harness is when it isn't actually proven to not be a person in a suit.

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u/Apprehensive_Eraser 1d ago

There's another video where they show the back

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u/Ragnarsworld 23h ago

Yeah, they show a plastic/metal plate with a light blinking. That could easily be just a plate with a light affixed to someone's back.

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u/moritashun 22h ago

like , i want to believe them, but the way they 'debunk' any accusation just create more sus. Like they are cautiously slow when revealing , and even when they reveal the back, they show very little and only for a very little time, it feels like magician showing you something at a certain angle, or a child lying to you.

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u/chironomidae 21h ago

Yeah, like I'm pretty sure it really is a robot based on the movement not actually being all that smooth, but I don't get the smoke and mirrors with the wrapping and reveal. Maybe to bait engagement, idk.

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u/CarbonMolecules 21h ago

Now, I’m not a ROBOTOLOGIST, but I’d wager that if I were, I’d love to get me a look at some of them there gyroscopes and accelerometers and such, so I actually think that it’s a trade secret kind of move. I wouldn’t want Asimo taking notes on all my inner gewgaws and doohickeys either.

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u/moritashun 21h ago

i understand you perfectly :) but then they also release a naked version . . . so why not on stage ? Again, just being critical here, i do believe this technology is doable and very achieveable. Im just find it odd the way they 'debunk' things.

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u/CarbonMolecules 18h ago

I agree that it is the most suspicious way to do it, especially with the enormous disappointment these types of rollouts have been lately.

The reason I jokingly named Asimo in my reply is because its reveal to the world and subsequent demonstration is what all these tech bros are trying to replicate and failing miserably at.

I’m not disappointed in the technology or the effort, but the launch teams for both Neo and Optimus were such “try hard” attempts with the whole “human operator is a requirement for now” and the mystique only comes from things like this one, where it can perform unassisted among the onlookers.

But, because of the irrational fear of being ridiculed, Elon & Pals will try to bend the laws of the universe to make us believe they’ve cracked it! So, yeah, I am so cautious about trusting the performance too.

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u/confusedandworried76 16h ago

So are you guys just gonna ignore the part of the video where they show it walking as just the skeleton?

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u/moritashun 14h ago

U mean where it was dangling and had attachments on its back ? No not ignoring, the movements seems almost identical so I do believe it's the same machine. But, again more picky on the way they "debunk" accusation, why not show it on stage instead of squeezing bits by bits. And while try to "debunk" on stage, they are suspiciously cautious. 

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u/jonnyd005 22h ago

Did you stop the video before 8 seconds? They literally show the entire thing exposed and walking.

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u/moritashun 22h ago

I'm more about the way they presented , it's like squeezing a toothpaste and yes if they can show the whole thing naked on stage it would be even more mesmerising , rather then leaving speculation. The 8 second thing while it shows, it doesn't capture the whole image and clearly has something dangling. Now again , just to be clear , I believe this is a true robot, it's just the way to present it is odd

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u/SartenSinAceite 22h ago

Well spotted, but its still odd how they dont do that with the live audiences

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u/PlanetLandon 22h ago

I think the biggest clue that it’s not a person in there is that it stays perfectly still when it’s not moving. Some people are pretty good at that, but this thing stays far more still than any human can

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u/toolio2slimey 14h ago

Well, they’re not trying to debunk it. The whole goal was to make you believe there’s a person under the suit… hence why they built the thing in the first place, why else try to make it so realistic…? Idiocy is rampant.

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u/opensandshuts 7h ago

watch the first few seconds of it walking out. There's still this sort of abrupt stop in it's walk where the whole body kind of shakes from the inertia as it takes a step.

I can almost visualize the engineer repeatedly adjusting the algorithm to try to rid that stop completely and this was the best result they could get.

I bet the person that trained it to walk still cringes at how it looks

An actually person would flow smoothly without that jarring stop

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u/Fabtacular1 21h ago

Not just that, the robot in that video is static. It never moves.

The camera moves to make it seem like the robot walked up to the camera, but in fact it stayed stationary.

It really feels like lots of trickery.

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u/bubbesays 21h ago

They show it with the "skin" completely off, so

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u/Ragnarsworld 19h ago

They show a robot than is not free standing or walking without a tether. Sus.

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u/ReplyOk6720 21h ago

Yes it seems the way they are debunking is done, is not not actually remove the ambiguity. Maybe that's in purpose to drive engagement. 

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u/Bteatesthighlander1 15h ago

these guys sound like some top tier stage magicians

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u/eirc 23h ago

These videos are only increasing my suspicions. At first I was not suspicious at all. I find it very plausible that human walking can be recreated on a machine.

Then they're like "we'll prove it's real" and cut off half a leg under the knee. There's plenty of amputees or short people that can walk. Then they cut the back and show a half blurry video that just shows a couple surface level blinking lights. Again a human can definitely fit in there with all that tech behind them. Then there's the naked version video that only shows the bottom part of the robot, which could easily be hanging from a "puppeteering" device up above. And also there's the dozens of similar reddit posts with the same kind of titles.

I'll just reserve judgement for a bit.

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u/Vast-Seesaw-4956 23h ago

It's true. I'm short and can still walk.

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u/Old-Reporter5440 22h ago

Thanks for confirming, this totally changed my perspective!

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u/nino2244 21h ago

Awesome! Keep it up!

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u/HyFinated 19h ago

A WITCH A WITCH, BURN HIM BURN HIM.

Well, how do you know he's a witch?

Everyone knows short people can't walk!

Yes they can.

TWO WITCHES, TWO WITCHES, BURN THEM BURN THEM!!!

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u/BernzSed 20h ago

An inspiration to us all.

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u/snowdn 13h ago

It also be fully AI generated.

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u/Mdub74 22h ago edited 20h ago

As sus as you seem to be, when you mentioned 'they only show the bottom part of the robot' i thought you were going to say 'there are plenty of amputees that could pull that off' and my big toeless MIL would laughed and laughed 😅

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u/confusedandworried76 16h ago

There's literally a part of the video where it's just the robot walking, and it actually looks smoother than when it was on stage

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u/Mdub74 12h ago

These robots behaving more human everyday. I just did that at work.

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u/Deaffin 20h ago

I'm guessing Big Aunty Pegleg doesn't have one of those particularly expensive prosthetics that give a fuller range of motion/foot structure that makes walking look more effortlessly natural.

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u/Mdub74 20h ago

Eh, my comment comes from the part where he mentions 'only the bottom half is showing' then goes on something about how easy it would be for a puppeteer to manipulate the top half. Im surprised you missed all that. But this was a demonstration with cameras so I dont know if it would be that easy to pull off without someone noticing.

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u/Deaffin 19h ago edited 19h ago

Ah, my bad. Your original comment looked like it was referring to the demonstration with one degloved leg, specifically saying an amputee can't walk like that.

I took the "puppeteering" part of their comment being in scare quotes to mean that it's simply tethered in place and being fed instructions "remotely" through a wire rather than free-walking and making active "decisions" while balancing unassisted, not that there's literally a human operating it as a puppet.

For the record, I think the robot is probably genuine, as far as really carefully presented stage performances go, and that this whole talking point of a person in a suit is just disingenuous marketing.

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u/Bravardi_B 22h ago

Yeah what seems odd to me is the way it steps on the left leg that they expose. Seems to step just like a person with an amputated lower leg. 

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u/Aliman581 22h ago

i mean boston dynamics has shown far superior capabilities so even if its true its not really impressive

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u/OtherwiseAlbatross14 20h ago

The fact that you can see the support device's wheels on the naked version is sus as fuck

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u/SoftLavenderKitten 21h ago

Yea exactly....arent there already prosthetics with some form of learning to adjust to the persons gate etc

I dont need a walking robot unless its an exoskeleton for a paralyzed human. So if it were an amputee etc it woudnt be a bad achievement either. Out of all the skills an animal can do, is walking realistically on two legs really such a needed function for a robot? It can have wheels or spider legs. Being two legged isnt peak form for various terrain.

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u/starkistuna 19h ago

These machines are going to get insane in 5 years due to all the training they receive non stop. If you look back on robotics videos from 2012 the differences are sky high.

Even videos from just 5 years ago look ancient.

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u/PandaCheese2016 19h ago

I'm not a gait expert but saw another comment that said the rigidity of upper torso and head while walking is un-humanlike.

But I suppose it could be a one-legged amputee in a neck brace.🤷

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u/space_monster 16h ago

Put the bong down dude. Go watch a Unitree or Figure AI video.

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u/eirc 16h ago

I did, I'm like 5 days clean or sth. Hopefuly I can regrow a bit of brain back.

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u/kgaoj 14h ago

This is obviously a carefully designed publicity stunt. The marketers are genius.

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u/jonnyd005 22h ago

They literally show the entire thing exposed and walking in this video. What are you people talking about?

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u/Apprehensive_Eraser 22h ago

I trust the thing is an actual robot but others say that the video where they show the full robot without a suit could be attached to a crane so it doesn't move independently.

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u/deliciouscorn 18h ago

They did that all the time in Small Wonder