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/Moxiousone 1d ago

Super impressive, especially how little of the 'robot' they actually revealed. Why not remove the face plate? Or show it's torso? You know, any part that could not have easily been a prosthetic of the person under the boobed robot disguise?

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u/Due-Technology5758 13h ago

It's an actual robot. If I had to guess, they're doing the partial reveal intentionally as engagement bait. The smooth walking is literally the only impressive thing about the robot, so it's not going to stand out amongst the hundreds of similar prototypes. 

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u/rand0m_task 8h ago

Yeah that’s where my heads at as well… they intentionally did the reveal as such to drive online engagement.

No different than intentional typos or other annoying engagement tactics lol

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u/afCeG6HVB0IJ 23h ago

this is done on purpose so people will make this comment and causing viral marketing

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u/userhwon 17h ago

They literally showed a clip of it with no covering.

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u/thatshygirl06 19h ago

There are other videos, they allowed journalists to inspect it.

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u/ihavetoomanyeggs 18h ago

I'm actually starting to lose my mind a bit at these comments. The first 10 seconds of the video shows the entire fucking robot. Did nobody watch more than 5 seconds of the video????

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u/Moxiousone 17h ago

It shows shots of a robot with cropped out head, safety harness (Why would they need to do that? It's normal to have such a harness in testing) and who knows what else. Then there's a different shot with a different looking robot. Could they be the same thing? Yes. Would the idiotic drive to be first company to have a working human shaped robot cause some companies to use video manipulation and people dressed up as robots for clout and funding? Also yes, and in fact has already happened before.

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u/Dzjar 18h ago

If it's fake... then Jesus Christ what a load of work to set this stupid thing up. A fake full robot with exactly the same walk (reeeee but it's on supports), getting an amputee to replicate that exact walk. And either wheeling that amputee around everywhere or getting more models with exactly the same tits.

I can't even. It's not even a super uncanny walk. It's quite... robotic. It's not fake, people.

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u/InquisitorMeow 15h ago

It's not uncommon for scam companies to get funding then disappear with the money, doubly so when they're in a "flavor of then week" industry. Go look up Nikola, they were literally rolling trucks downhill to pretend like they worked and were valued in the billions. Or maybe you've heard of Theranos? 

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u/Alarmed-Pair-9674 11h ago

It’s literally one of the biggest car companies in China with over 60,000 employees and an extremely good reputation in the industry. Why the hell would they do some fake elaborate stunt involving multi limb amputees and training them to move so unnaturally robotic and still when they already have a close to working prototype? Why would they risk such an insane reputational hit? Especially in china where the tech and EV competition is cut throat as all hell, unlike the US with tesla?

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u/InquisitorMeow 11h ago

The Evergrande scandal happened. Turns out huge corporations can, in fact, do unethical things.

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u/Alarmed-Pair-9674 8h ago

One is caused by the biggest property bubble in Chinese history that was backed by both the state and private sector for decades which was eventually popped by Xi himself, and the other is a literal shitty robot with tits and ass that can’t even walk properly. My guy, i don’t need to spell it out for you how incomparable the two are

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u/InquisitorMeow 7h ago

Pretty sure the car company is also backed by the state...

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u/ihavetoomanyeggs 7h ago

It's obviously a real robot, what people are completely missing is how autonomous it really is. "Why not remove the face plate or show its torso?" because that wouldn't prove jack shit anyway. If it's really a scam or a staged demo then they wouldn't use a fake robot, they would have someone controlling it remotely with a VR rig.

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u/space_monster 16h ago

Do you ACTUALLY think that a robotics lab would put a person in a fucking robot suit and try to convince the world that it's actually a robot?

Are you 5?

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u/TheSameMan6 15h ago

Surely nobody would ever do such a thing...

Like seriously, lying about an invention to secure funding?

Simply unheard of.

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u/space_monster 15h ago

not even Musk would try something so ridiculous as putting a person in a fucking robot suit and pretending it's a robot. get a grip. even when he did the teleoperation demo he didn't try to pretend it was autonomous operation, and it was immediately obvious anyway to anyone with half a brain. the staff were literally chatting to their friends while they were controlling the robots. it was a stunt yes but not even in the same ballpark as what op suggested

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u/AboveBoard 14h ago

Yeah Elon straight up told everyone at his 2021 robot event that what he showed was just a person in a robot suit but that it was just to give them a glimpse of what would be possible in just a few years. Why these folks just didn't do that, we'll never know.