Dancing humanoid [robots](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/robots) took centre stage on Monday during the annual China Media Group’s Spring Festival Gala, China’s most-watched official television broadcast. They lunged and backflipped (landing on their knees), they spun around and jumped. Not one fell over.
The display was impressive, but prompted some to wonder: if robots can now dance and perform martial arts, what else can they do?
UnculturedSwineFlu on
Compare it to the year before. Were cooked if they continue at this pace. 10 years from now they will be invading other countries with the perfect soldier that never misses, never gets tired, and never disobeys orders.
Citizen-Kang on
A robot can hold a gun; a robot can hold a knife. A robot is unhindered by morality or ethics because it incapable of either of those concepts. Consequences are as foreign to a robot as the human condition is to a space alien. If a robot was at the head of a column of tanks, that guy with the grocery bags would be a thin paste lodged in the tank treads. I’d say we should be very worried.
_ECMO_ on
The US should absolutely be worried about China. But not because of some dancing robots.
toolfan955 on
Terrified. Just imagine them infiltrating our hottest clubs. Styling on folks left and right.
ScoutAndLout on
Were we not concerned when Boston Dynamics rolled out Big Dog 20 years ago?
Making them humanoid is more concerning that autonomous four-legged robots?
agentchuck on
The demonstration was absolutely mind blowing, but I suspect that batteries continue to be a major limiting factor for free roaming robotics. 30 seconds of acrobatics was enough to drain the batteries they had. They were subtly swapped out a few times during the presentation.
jroberts548 on
I for one welcome our Chinese overlords.
More seriously, for most purposes that should frighten you, the quadcopter and dog drones should be much more frightening. If you live in a western country you are much more likely to be killed by a palantir drone with a gun than an humanoid chinese robot doing kung fu. It’s more likely that your government has already been testing strategies like having a drone broadcast the sound of a baby crying for help then shooting anyone who comes to check it out, as the idf did in Gaza.
Humanoid robots are basically a novelty for demonstrating tech. The robots that will actually displace more workers and then suppress protests by broke and angry displaced workers will be specialized.
farticustheelder on
Dancing bots just prove that dancing is really easy. Tesla’s Optimus (Sub Prime), the real bot not the actors in bot suits, danced more than adequately but looked terribly clumsy and slow moving while transferring Tesla 4680 cells from one tray to another. Nothing like the super high speed of most industrial automated assembly lines…
HaltheDestroyer on
I wouldn’t worry about it until they’re approaching your position in the trenches in a tango line with grenade launchers and machine guns mounted to their limbs
WorldError47 on
Anytime there’s an article about China, it ends with ‘should we be worried’?
The US is afraid of falling behind, but instead of re-investing in our people or infrastructure to advance, we’re just going to downplay all foreign advancements, and our domestic stagnation, huh. Closing our eyes and covering our ears…
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From the article
Dancing humanoid [robots](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/robots) took centre stage on Monday during the annual China Media Group’s Spring Festival Gala, China’s most-watched official television broadcast. They lunged and backflipped (landing on their knees), they spun around and jumped. Not one fell over.
The display was impressive, but prompted some to wonder: if robots can now dance and perform martial arts, what else can they do?
Compare it to the year before. Were cooked if they continue at this pace. 10 years from now they will be invading other countries with the perfect soldier that never misses, never gets tired, and never disobeys orders.
A robot can hold a gun; a robot can hold a knife. A robot is unhindered by morality or ethics because it incapable of either of those concepts. Consequences are as foreign to a robot as the human condition is to a space alien. If a robot was at the head of a column of tanks, that guy with the grocery bags would be a thin paste lodged in the tank treads. I’d say we should be very worried.
The US should absolutely be worried about China. But not because of some dancing robots.
Terrified. Just imagine them infiltrating our hottest clubs. Styling on folks left and right.
Were we not concerned when Boston Dynamics rolled out Big Dog 20 years ago?
Making them humanoid is more concerning that autonomous four-legged robots?
The demonstration was absolutely mind blowing, but I suspect that batteries continue to be a major limiting factor for free roaming robotics. 30 seconds of acrobatics was enough to drain the batteries they had. They were subtly swapped out a few times during the presentation.
I for one welcome our Chinese overlords.
More seriously, for most purposes that should frighten you, the quadcopter and dog drones should be much more frightening. If you live in a western country you are much more likely to be killed by a palantir drone with a gun than an humanoid chinese robot doing kung fu. It’s more likely that your government has already been testing strategies like having a drone broadcast the sound of a baby crying for help then shooting anyone who comes to check it out, as the idf did in Gaza.
Humanoid robots are basically a novelty for demonstrating tech. The robots that will actually displace more workers and then suppress protests by broke and angry displaced workers will be specialized.
Dancing bots just prove that dancing is really easy. Tesla’s Optimus (Sub Prime), the real bot not the actors in bot suits, danced more than adequately but looked terribly clumsy and slow moving while transferring Tesla 4680 cells from one tray to another. Nothing like the super high speed of most industrial automated assembly lines…
I wouldn’t worry about it until they’re approaching your position in the trenches in a tango line with grenade launchers and machine guns mounted to their limbs
Anytime there’s an article about China, it ends with ‘should we be worried’?
The US is afraid of falling behind, but instead of re-investing in our people or infrastructure to advance, we’re just going to downplay all foreign advancements, and our domestic stagnation, huh. Closing our eyes and covering our ears…