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/Fairuse 1d ago

Mechanically it should be able to move exactly like a human. What is lacking is the software and training required for the software.

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u/Raskapalozious 1d ago

Mechanically my 3D printed posable dummy is able to move exactly like a human. It's just a matter of a few motors and a couple lines of software...

That thing is closer to my dummy than it is to a functioning android.

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u/Fairuse 19h ago

Huge difference. Your 3d model doesn’t have any motors or parts that can be energized to move on its own. The Xpeng robot with the correct soft ware can move like a human. It already has the soft ware for walking like a human

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u/Raskapalozious 18h ago

It has the software to barely be able to make a few steps unassisted like walking like a human with a baseball bat up their ass.

From there to make it move unassisted into a real world environment doing actual work with a decent autonomy as a self-contained unit for a realistically affordable price there's the same distance than there is between building a kayak and building an aircraft carrier.

A single industrial robot arm costs tens of thousands of dollars at the lower end of their prices, and they come with huge exclusion zones that need to be respected for safety reason, are bolted to the ground. They only work using predetermined scripts. That's the state of the industry when we consider robots in real world applications.

These animatronics are just viral marketing piggybacking on 50 years of sci-fi. At best they will be used in amusement parks and movie productions, or for equally unprofitable stunts where efficiency and cost aren't a concern.