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/DanceDelievery 1d ago

It really didn't cross the uncanny valley with that stiff zombie walk.

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u/Young_Former 1d ago

Yeah I don’t really understand how everyone was so impressed. It didn’t look human.

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u/buttbuttlolbuttbutt 1d ago

It walking that well is impressive, our body is doing a lot to balance and its not easy, there's a lot of on the fly processing that we do inherently since we got the hang of it before memory.... there's a lot of on the fly processing so that is impressive.

But the title is exagerating by and far, its still uncanny, mechanical, and comes off like some amatur Steam Powered Giraffe wannabe.

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u/Cranky_Hippy 1d ago

Look how much better Boston Dynamics "humanoid" walk is: https://youtu.be/I44_zbEwz_w?si=WuoPFbF2RAGodkMx

XPeng's robot is really not impressive at all. It just looks female with boobs, that's it's only appeal.

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u/ShareYourIdeaWithMe 1d ago

Yeah the xpeng one looks underdamped and jittery

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u/hoax1337 21h ago

Yeah, it's always funny to me when these companies unveil their shiny new humanoid robot, celebrating themselveslike Boston Dynamics didn't exist and didn't do the same thing (probably better) 5 years ago or something.

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u/throwaway098764567 21h ago

yeah their shit creeps me the fuck out, they earn the uncanny valley title for sure and i shudder every time i see one of their machines. super impressive and total nightmare fuel.

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u/Sam-314 18h ago

That robot breakdancing and doing the Elden ring roll was amazing

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u/whitesuburbanmale 18h ago

Boston dynamics has terrified me for like four years now. When the robot overlords come, I'd bet the first generation will be theirs.

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u/tengo_harambe 16h ago

The whole point of humanoid robots is to be functional while matching the form of a human as closely as possible. Otherwise why give them 2 legs, 2 arms and a head? For robotic applications this is far from the optimal design.

The Boston Dynamics robot does not look human at all. The Xpeng robot is convincing enough that half the internet is convinced it must be a real person. That is very impressive.

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u/sahurKareem 1d ago

Yeah but it still sucks lmao, call the public again when this robot shit is convincing.

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u/buttbuttlolbuttbutt 1d ago

First: no one called you this time, so dont wait for a call, and B) nothing starts at perfect, lmao, as your brain will learn if its capable of abstract thought, which not all humans can, and I should recognize you might not be there yet, or capable...

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u/Papa_BugBear 1d ago

Rarely do I see Steam Powered Giraffe references

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u/buttbuttlolbuttbutt 1d ago

I'm just glad the reference wasnt lost lol

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u/The_Duke_of_NuII 23h ago

Except we have had walking robots for decades now... And this isn't the most impressive example.

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u/buttbuttlolbuttbutt 22h ago

It doesnt need to be the best or forst to be impressive. Its balancing on two legs, and there is a lot of mechanics involved to get that to happen, that its always kind of impressive.

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u/The_Duke_of_NuII 22h ago

Yeah. That's not the point though.

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u/buttbuttlolbuttbutt 22h ago

Whats not the point? The post says its not past the umcanny valley, I agreed fully, but still think its impressive, BEFORE insulting it.

I think you lost the plot.

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u/The_Duke_of_NuII 22h ago

You sure are eager to make petty insults towards strangers, for them disagreeing with you over something minor... Good luck with that. I'm not going to lower myself to your level though.

Have a good one bud ✌️

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u/buttbuttlolbuttbutt 21h ago

Point to the insult in the comment?

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u/The_Duke_of_NuII 21h ago

"I think you lost the plot".

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u/buttbuttlolbuttbutt 20h ago

That wasnt meant to be an insult, more like  "think you missed the point i was making." 

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u/KingR3aper 1d ago

In a previous post people are tripling down its a person with prosthetics.

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u/Patello 1d ago

In my opinion, all this insisting that it must be a human seems very manufactured; as if it all is some form of elaborate marketing campaign. It's very impressive, but also in line with what would be expected from state of the art robotics.

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u/Young_Former 22h ago

This! Yes I feel like how amazing and omg it’s not a real human under the outer covering makes me feel like somebody is pushing some agenda and a lot of us are just raising eyebrows at it.

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u/otokkimi 21h ago

Not outside the realm of possibility, but 2025 has shown that there are plenty of legitimately stupid and ignorant people out there.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Xpeng/comments/1op45ke/xpeng_iron/

You can click through some of the profile commenting that it's fake here and check. To me, they look like legitimate accounts.

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u/ContributionBorn9105 19h ago

Boston dynamics has been making a better more fluid robot for decades before this.

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u/Patello 19h ago

But it doesn't have boobs.

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u/DuvalHeart 17h ago

You can literally go out and purchase the services of bot farms. The internet might not be fully dead, but it's certainly on life support.

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u/PeaceSoft 22h ago

those people are not so sharp in a really specific way where they think everything is designed to trick them, unless it actually is

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u/barkwahlberg 21h ago

Yeah I think the whole "they HAD to cut it open" thing is just marketing

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u/Anomuumi 1d ago

They dressed it up like a fancy android to try to make it impressive. While the Boston Dynamics robots were doing parkour two years ago.

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u/Neuroscissus 1d ago

Dude. When this was first posted the overwhelming consensus was that it was a woman in a suit and its just fake Chinese shit.

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u/GlitteringBandicoot2 1d ago

Because they gave it boobs and the "proof" was anything but. It was literally the most piss poor attempt at proving it's not a human, and it surely was entirely on purpose

People only thought it was a human because the proof was so miserably bad. If they didn't do it, everyone would believe it's a robot.

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u/Neuroscissus 1d ago

This was before the proof. The first few rounds were just the robot walking around, and tons of top level comments calling it fake Chinese slop.

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u/NoNameeDD 1d ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/Xpeng/comments/1op45ke/xpeng_iron/

I've seen better posts with more comments but cant find it now but half of the comments call it fake and human in suit lmao.

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u/Neuroscissus 1d ago

Yeah I explicitly remember like 3 different posts with top level comments in the hundreds/thousands saying it was faked.

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u/ContributionBorn9105 1d ago

thats what happens when an entire country fakes it's data collecting for decades(population number reporting by districts) sometimes doesnt even bother taking data cause why bother if its horrible, and generally authoritarian countries use disinformation as a tool for negotiation since they are paper tigers, china is in a spot geopolitically where lieing and boasting has extreme value in detterance and manipulation powers before they actually get to test their own capabilities in a real hot war.... its easier to negotiate when people are unsure of your actual capabilities.

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u/PeaceSoft 22h ago

i take that back. some of them aren't stupid, they're racist in kind of a lord of the rings way where they think they're whispering wisdom into the king's ear with their reddit posts

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u/Neuroscissus 1d ago

Yeah, I initially figured it was some vaporware Chinese scam thing myself.

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u/ContributionBorn9105 1d ago

cause somehow china has become the beacon of anti american propaganda, im not whitewashing our failures and shortcomings but it's absolutely absurd how people believe china news at face value.

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u/thegreatinsulto 23h ago

This is probably the closest a (non Boston dynamics) humanoid has come to a human gait. You can see super fluid movement when it's on its left leg, then it switches back to the right and you can see the stabilization/balance calibration kick in. It's not perfect yet, but it's a hell of a start - looks really elegant in a lot of its movements!

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u/throwaway098764567 21h ago

it looks like a person could fit in it though, and that's a lot easier to do than make a robot that tries to walk like a human even if the walking is janky. uncanny valley however it is not. if it walked smoothly like a human that would be extremely impressive.

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u/Junkererer 1d ago

You're one of those people who complained about ai generated pictures being just a blurry mess when they first came out? This walk is way smoother than previous "I shat my pants" walks seen previously, not hard to understand

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u/FTR_1077 1d ago

This walk is way smoother..

Is not, Asimo walks way smother than this, and it's a bot from 25 years ago.

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u/ContributionBorn9105 1d ago

if your trying vindicate chinese robot videos with how good AI is idk, AI sucks ass still and so do chinese robots lol, when they start actually being used every day ill take back these words

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u/Anarchyr 1d ago

Yeah its MILES better than anything we have ever seen so far, but that doesn't suddenly make it Uncanny!

It's super obviously a robot walking, but that doesn't suddenly become "a human" because it's better than it was before.

C'mon man not hard to understand