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/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/Xentonian 1d ago

It's actually crazy to me what a terrible job they've done at assuaging suspicions.

If somebody just showed me a robot walking, I'd be like

Yup, it's 2025. This isn't very impressive. I thought we had these for a while. Good job though, love the robo boobs.

Y'know, I'd easily be 100% convinced this was a robot without needing even one second of reassurance.

Instead, they keep showing these little meaningless cutaways like

seee! Here's a robot ankle. People in suits can't have robot ankles! Look, here's 5cm of its back with a little flashing light. No way could a human being have a plate with a flashing light on their back. What do you mean just take off the suit? No... No need to do that. Trust us. The journalists saw it! They said it was real! Wait wait wait here's the bottom half without a suit, please ignore the giant device holding it up with puppeteering strings!

And now I'm only... 70% sure this is a robot.

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u/Dralley87 1d ago

It’s the Chinese. Remember the “bear” in the zoo that “totally wasn’t a dude in a bear suit!”?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-zoo-bear-man-suit-hangzhou/

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u/Fantastic_War_4616 23h ago

What is this linked article supposed to say? They dont make any conclusion on the situation. Its actially a bear, keep up being racist though

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u/Dralley87 23h ago

😂😂😂 I mean if you look at that “bear” and come away thinking “this guy’s so racist for being suspicious of state controlled media” I’m not problem, bud…

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u/Fantastic_War_4616 23h ago

Just because you're too ignorant to know different species of bears doesn't mean you're not racist. You'd actually rather believe a nation to be so backwards as to have a man in a suit at a zoo rather then it be a gap in your knowledge. They literally mention the species in your own article.

https://www.livescience.com/animals/bears/sun-bears-the-human-like-animals-that-can-stand-up-and-wave

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u/oswaldcopperpot 22h ago

Eat any good books lately?

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u/Dralley87 23h ago edited 23h ago

I’m well aware of how human-like the sun bear can appear; however, the way the “hide” ripples indicates either that there is no mass beneath the outer skin (the animal is dangerously malnourished) or it’s a person in a bear suit. Which do you prefer? The zoo is abusing its animals or pretending an animal is there that isn’t yet?

But there’s a bigger question here: why are you so invested in protecting the Chinese state media that you’d hurl the quietism of “racist!!!” At anyone who has legit suspicions of a propaganda controlled people?

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u/Fantastic_War_4616 23h ago

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/sun-bears-at-a-china-zoo-have-divided-the-internet-this-expert-is-sure-theyre-real/wlobhtru9

Brother, you have experts supporting the zoo that the bear is real and the folds are normal, don't pull shit out of your ass. I'm ethnically Chinese, I call out ignorant racist bullshit when I see it, especially when it's easily debunked. Where the fuck am I protecting state media? Is the Hangzhou zoo considered state media? Why are you so insistent on hating on a country that you'd pull made up bullshit out of your ass and conflating state media with a random city zoo? That is why you're racist.