I really feel like people need to stop trying to make these sorts of robots look so "human-like". The effect of a mouthless bald doll head strapped on top of an iron man robot isn't exactly comforting, to me anyway. It starts to hit the uncanny valley a bit
I feel like the funny part is that there are so many "robot" mask designs in pop culture that would look 1000x more comforting than a slightly psychotic looking robotic doll
zhainya 10 hours ago [-]
Everything about this design feels wrong. Like they went out of their way to make it unappealing.
voidUpdate 17 hours ago [-]
That's exactly my idea. I would feel far more comforted being rescued by something like Chappie or The Iron Legion than something like the Sophia robot or this thing. Human-inspired over human imitation
ahoka 17 hours ago [-]
This looks like it was put together by Sid in his room.
13 hours ago [-]
freedomben 11 hours ago [-]
That was exactly what I thought of too when I saw it, hahaha. If it wasn't terrifying enough already...
KineticLensman 17 hours ago [-]
A similar type of robot is key to the plot of the superbly quirky film 'Brian and Charles' [0] in which a nutty inventor build a robot that looks exactly a weird old-man's head stuck on top of a washing-machine shaped body.
Under rated British comedy gold right there, layers and layers especially the illuminati references
sgt 11 hours ago [-]
I think they could make it a bit more professional looking like: https://imgur.com/a/vXED98B
Like a friendly yet stern Butler of the Skies.
eig 16 hours ago [-]
Presumably they want to eventually put a human inside it, in which case having a humanoid robot to work off of wouldn't change the aero calculations and designs too much. The article talks about specific design considerations to avoid the exhaust gases.
voidUpdate 16 hours ago [-]
Gravity Industries already has that sorted https://gravity.co/ . I was almost expecting this robot to just be a humanoid robot with one of those suits on
legacynl 15 hours ago [-]
Looking at the 'hands' of this robot, it looks to be exactly that.
bArray 16 hours ago [-]
> Presumably they want to eventually put a human inside it [..]
I'm imagining a team just putting the organs of a human into the robot to save on space. Basically a brain plus whatever is absolutely necessary to run the brain.
stavros 15 hours ago [-]
Wasn't that Robocop 3?
7 hours ago [-]
stronglikedan 15 hours ago [-]
I would look at that and think "doll". Others look at it and think "human". People are weird.
astroflection 11 hours ago [-]
Obviously being able to fly a bipedal kill bot into a "war zone" and then use it for door-to-door fighting is something certain large organizations are looking for. The stupid baby mask is just to distract critics of kill bot tech.
robomartin 27 minutes ago [-]
This goes into my "Top 100 really dumb things I've seen this year" list. Not sure if it makes top ten. It's definitely in the top 25%.
OK. Why?
Let's forget then "Let's strap model airplane jet engines to the robot and make it fly." part.
For this dumb mechanical albatross to be anywhere close to useful in ANY scenario, even without flying...it has to be useful as a humanoid robot. It isn't. iCub was a cool concept, but it is so far behind the current state of the art I am not sure why they are trying to make it fly.
And, flying?
You can hang a humanoid from any of the already available mega quadcopters and drop it off anywhere within the flight range.
You can probably stick a parachute on an already available humanoid and drop dozens of them from an airplane.
Flying is a solved problem. A humanoid useful in the real world --particularly in disaster areas-- is not. At all.
trenchpilgrim 17 hours ago [-]
"disaster response" is code for "we built the robot before realizing we need to justify it to others" https://xkcd.com/2128
josefresco 13 hours ago [-]
Came here to say this. It appears 14 words into the article! I laughed out loud and immediately stopped reading. Write an article when their robot has "saved" at least one living thing and I'll pay attention. Until then it's just vapor. In the meantime I'll wear my downvotes with pride.
Can we please be honest with ourselves for a second and call out the ridiculousness of the "find a lost hiker" and "disaster relief" excuses used by kill-bot companies?
Who is this robot going to save with glowing hot turbine engines on it's fore-arms.
This is kill-bot tech put on the iCub to get articles in circulation.
fragmede 11 hours ago [-]
It's dual use technology. It can and will be used to find lost hikers, it's just that it can also be used for nefarious purposes.
busterarm 13 hours ago [-]
If you truly wanted to do this, the Russia-Ukraine conflict has already proven that you can drop bombs via drones with pinpoint accuracy for dirt cheap.
If somebody's going to work on something a million times more the cost and a similar fractional multiple of the effectiveness, maybe you can take them at face value that they're not building a murderbot (at least not by design).
SketchySeaBeast 12 hours ago [-]
> at face value
Freaky baby face value.
13 hours ago [-]
1234letshaveatw 17 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
MSFT_Edging 16 hours ago [-]
Ah the classic, "It was about state's rights" argument dressed up a bit.
Similar to the original, let's ask "state's right to what?"
What was manipulated or suppressed? Bleach is Medicine? The deep state swamp? "Debanking" crypto scammers?
1234letshaveatw 15 hours ago [-]
I get it, it's only cool when the government is enabled to oppress things you don't like. You don't have to repeat it
arnaudsm 16 hours ago [-]
Why would you need bipedism for a flying object ? Wouldn't a quadripod + quadcopter setup would be much more stable and cheaper ?
voidUpdate 16 hours ago [-]
It's being advertised as being used for generic disaster recovery, where it's beneficial to be human-shaped (human infrastructure is designed for humans, so its easier to interface with it if the robot is human-shaped too), so they just strapped some jets on it to take it to the disaster zone itself
meindnoch 16 hours ago [-]
>It's being advertised as being used for generic disaster recovery, where it's beneficial to be human-shaped (human infrastructure is designed for humans, so its easier to interface with it if the robot is human-shaped too)
Ummmm, disaster recovery is hard precisely because the infrastructure (e.g. a collapsed building) ceased to be suitable for humans.
input_sh 16 hours ago [-]
That's just something robot manufacturers say to justify building their expensive toys, I promise you it'll never be used for that purpose.
See the XKCD someone has already posted below.
voidUpdate 16 hours ago [-]
Yeah I know, but that's what they're advertising it as
cdfsdsadsa 16 hours ago [-]
That's not the point of this robot.
I suppose the original iCub research robot is running out of grants it can milk, so they strapped some jet engines to it.
13 hours ago [-]
wheybags 14 hours ago [-]
https://gravity.co/ is a similar project that seems to be much more advanced, and also attaches to a real human body, rather than a nightmare doll head
busterarm 13 hours ago [-]
It's also incredibly difficult to learn to use and to operate. The whole point of putting a robot in the cockpit is that it won't make mistakes humans will and thus be more fuel efficient (e.g., longer operation times).
At least if you can keep the weight down.
switchbak 13 hours ago [-]
Man, the carnage that will inevitably happen when someone pushes this thing too far. I suppose that’s true of many things (motorcycles), but this just terrifies me.
jandrese 13 hours ago [-]
> “is that the exhaust gas from the turbines is at 800 °C and almost supersonic speed.
MY SHOES ARE ON FIRE!
They kinda handwaved the whole "wash the disaster area in superheated jet exhaust before doing your S&R" problem.
Klaster_1 17 hours ago [-]
Next step: add an RTG power source and make it look like a boy.
p0w3n3d 15 hours ago [-]
Flying is usually the easiest part of "flying like Iron Man"
SketchySeaBeast 12 hours ago [-]
Given that the video showed ~1 second of "flying", I don't even know if that's the case.
insane_dreamer 11 hours ago [-]
It seems that flying a robot to a disaster response area is the easy part. The question is whether it'll be able to do anything truly useful there.
exe34 15 hours ago [-]
"uh.... search and rescue."
micromacrofoot 15 hours ago [-]
a humanoid robot designed to fly like a billionaire arms dealer
Rendered at 05:23:45 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_and_Charles
I'm imagining a team just putting the organs of a human into the robot to save on space. Basically a brain plus whatever is absolutely necessary to run the brain.
OK. Why?
Let's forget then "Let's strap model airplane jet engines to the robot and make it fly." part.
For this dumb mechanical albatross to be anywhere close to useful in ANY scenario, even without flying...it has to be useful as a humanoid robot. It isn't. iCub was a cool concept, but it is so far behind the current state of the art I am not sure why they are trying to make it fly.
And, flying?
You can hang a humanoid from any of the already available mega quadcopters and drop it off anywhere within the flight range.
You can probably stick a parachute on an already available humanoid and drop dozens of them from an airplane.
Flying is a solved problem. A humanoid useful in the real world --particularly in disaster areas-- is not. At all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxyLui5LdCc
Who is this robot going to save with glowing hot turbine engines on it's fore-arms.
This is kill-bot tech put on the iCub to get articles in circulation.
If somebody's going to work on something a million times more the cost and a similar fractional multiple of the effectiveness, maybe you can take them at face value that they're not building a murderbot (at least not by design).
Freaky baby face value.
Similar to the original, let's ask "state's right to what?"
What was manipulated or suppressed? Bleach is Medicine? The deep state swamp? "Debanking" crypto scammers?
Ummmm, disaster recovery is hard precisely because the infrastructure (e.g. a collapsed building) ceased to be suitable for humans.
See the XKCD someone has already posted below.
I suppose the original iCub research robot is running out of grants it can milk, so they strapped some jet engines to it.
At least if you can keep the weight down.
MY SHOES ARE ON FIRE!
They kinda handwaved the whole "wash the disaster area in superheated jet exhaust before doing your S&R" problem.