Maybe Humanoid Robots Won’t Wipe Us Out as Quickly as We Feared

A robot named AIDOL just fell flat on its metal face and bought us a tiny bit more time before we reach the Singularity.

The humanoid robot, powered by artificial intelligence, made its grand debut in Moscow to the Rocky theme song on Tuesday, a bold choice for a machine apparently still learning to walk.

After staggering through its entrance and giving the crowd a hopeful little wave, AIDOL promptly toppled over and ate stage floor. Hard. So hard, in fact, that the two employees behind it had to scramble to get the robot up.

“At first, there was a moment of silence,” Dmitry Filonov, an editor who was there, said in a text message to the New York Times on Wednesday. “Then they began to applaud to show their support.”

Nothing says “the future is now” like a robot faceplant receiving a pity clap.

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A new humanoid robot's debut appearance in Moscow, Russia did not go to plan, after the robot promptly fell on its face seconds after its grand unveiling. #abcnews #news
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The robot’s developers quickly released a statement trying to spin the whole moment as growth, not malfunction, and point out that it had nothing to do with Russia’s political class.

“This is not a government initiative, nor is it funded by large corporations, but a small independent team of 14 people who have been building this robot for several years using their own funds, without external investment,” the company said. “Despite our size, we believe our work is currently among the most advanced in Russia in this area and is quite comparable to leading international efforts (and in some aspects even ahead of them).”

The company added that the dramatic collapse was simply “part of the normal process of developing cutting-edge technology.” Then they went all the way for inspirational-poster energy, saying, “what is truly frightening is not to fall, but not to get back up.” LMAO.

According to its makers, AIDOL will eventually be able to walk, handle objects, communicate with people, and perform tasks that have made it optimal for the automotive manufacturing industry, among other sectors. Low-key, sounds like this thing is supposed to be the kind of robot that replaces human labor, which is already happening faster than anyone expected with artificial intelligence.

Goldman Sachs estimates that six to seven percent of U.S. workers could lose their jobs due to AI adoption. So maybe AIDOL’s onstage collapse was a tiny win for humanity. We’re still here, y’all.

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