r/singularity • u/uniyk • Apr 19 '26
Robotics 50m26s, the human half-marathon record (57m20s) was borken by a robot today
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u/ministryofchampagne Apr 19 '26
It borks so hard
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Apr 19 '26
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u/SusanMilberger Apr 19 '26
HEāLL YEAH BORTHER
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u/i_eat_da_poops Apr 19 '26
And borked so far
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u/mista-sparkle Apr 19 '26
Bork in the end it doesnāt even matter
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u/ascii_heart_ Apr 19 '26
One bork, I dont know why
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u/PyrexPicasso85 Apr 20 '26
Doesn't even matter how hard you Bork ...
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u/Pur_Melomane1111918 Apr 21 '26
Keep bork in mind, I designed this rhyme to remind myself how I tried to bork
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u/Vincebourgh Apr 21 '26
All I know is bork is a valuable thing.
Watch it bork now as the pendulum swings.
Watch it count down to the bork of the day, the bork takes time away.
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u/ardoewaan Apr 19 '26
He tried so hard and borked so far
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u/Imaginary_History985 Apr 19 '26
But in the end, the borking didn't matter
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u/Cautious-Reserve8241 Apr 19 '26
Would you bork me? I'd bork me. I'd bork me HARD.
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u/dominodomino321 Apr 19 '26
I knew the comments would destroy me and here I am: happily destroyed.
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u/ima_trashpanda Apr 19 '26
Heās going to be so sore tomorrow!
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Apr 19 '26
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Apr 20 '26
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u/Pretend-Function-133 Apr 21 '26
Did you know that Vigo Mortenson broke his foot when he kicked the helmet in the Lord of the Rings movie?
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u/BGP_001 Apr 19 '26
See how his heel strikes too, terrible form, he's going to really regret that when he's older
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u/Aleashed Apr 19 '26
Why are they being chased by cops with long guns?
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u/Life-999 Apr 19 '26
In case they go rogue!
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u/HailSatanWorshipD00M Apr 19 '26
We're now a half marathon closer to Hunter-Killers seeking out the huddled remnants of humanity in abandoned Costcos and taking us out one by one.
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u/Ragnogrimmus Apr 20 '26
Advanced robotics and AI.. hmm sounds like the inevitable.
So where are we suppose to go?
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u/Fluffy_Birthday4537 Apr 19 '26
I have seen the future and it is heel striking
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u/Nihilisman45 Apr 19 '26
Doesn't matter if you're a robot or a human I'll scope out that heel strike immediately
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u/gallifreywhovian Apr 19 '26
The athletes who spend all their lives training:
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u/Ursa-to-Polaris Apr 20 '26
I just keep moving the goal posts. My ancestors ran marathons to exhaust antelope for their hides. I run marathons because I'm stupid. My descendents will run marathons to exhaust rowbuts for scrap.
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u/Fairuse Apr 19 '26
Scary compare to same race last year where half robots just fell over and couldn't complete the race. The pace of progress of scary.
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u/laterral Apr 19 '26
Sounds quite funny actually.. is there a good video of this?
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u/Cruxius Apr 19 '26
It's hilarious, my favourite is the mini Kim Jong Un giving a roman salute at 2:17. It truly is insane how far they've progressed in just a year.
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u/fellaneedahandpls Apr 20 '26
robots fall over
Team notes for next race: find a way to not do that, then weāll be gold
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u/Ciel__000 Apr 20 '26
"they wont take the physical jobs at least ... ah my perfect career as a plumber sure is safe for at least a 100 years"
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u/subdep Apr 19 '26
That robot has some thick hips.
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u/fatincomingvirus Apr 19 '26
owie wowie looks like you are catching the hornies for a robot.
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u/St00p_kiddd Apr 19 '26
lol am I the only one questioning why is has butt cheeks?
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u/keldondonovan Apr 21 '26
If this is an honest question, then allow my oddly niche information to aid you!
Designing a robot that moves as a human does seems like it has a straight forward number of moving parts. Forward/backward on ankle, knee, and hip, then again in shoulder, elbow, and wrist. In reality, when humans walk or run, there are micro adjustments to the left and right to maintain your center of gravity. This is most easily demonstrated by standing with your feet shoulder width apart, and then lifting one foot. You'll either fall over (what butt cheek less robots will do) or you'll feel the adjustment in your hips as you shift your weight to your remaining foot.
Those butt cheeks are very precise servo motors that allow for accurate shifts like this, changing the weight distribution of the robot while it moves so that it doesn't fall over.
Source: focused on robotics in high school, decades ago, and could not get my humanoid robot to walk without butt cheek implementation.
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u/Winterkirschenmann Apr 19 '26
The robot was later disqualified. Turns out every single transistor was doped!
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u/Sirosim_Celojuma Apr 19 '26
Borken. What an awesome typo. Your inbox is being flooded by bork right now.
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u/Rabid_Hermit Apr 19 '26
Is it in a single charge?
Here is where I take issue, if it falls and it cant get back up on its own to finish...did it really finish?
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u/xlnc2608 Apr 19 '26
It has nascar like pitstops where they change batteries in front, refill the back with icecubes and spray wd40 in the groin
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u/AtomicShart9000 Apr 19 '26
If I start running marathons can I request to have wd40 rubbed on my groin as well
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u/AppropriateCattle69 Apr 19 '26
Iāll do it for you even if you arenāt running a marathon.
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u/FireTyme Apr 19 '26
i doubt its actual wd40, it doesnāt really have industrial lubricant strength
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u/Alarmed-Cheetah-1221 Apr 19 '26
It's not really a lubricant at all
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u/FireTyme Apr 19 '26
its not its main purpose, but it can be used for light lubrication purposes.
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u/Boom9001 Apr 19 '26
Worth noting WD40 now also sells formulas designed for lubrication that you should buy instead (if you need lubrication).
The original is for getting rid of adhesives, grease, and protecting against rust. I think a confusion is if a mechanism is stuck wd40 is amazing at making it move, but that's cuz it gets rid of other shit freeing the mechanism and it has a little lubricant oil that will remain. That won't last though you need proper lubrication to keep it moving.
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u/Boom9001 Apr 19 '26
Isn't that kinda unfair comparison. Giving it totally refilled energy each leg seems more like a relay race. I have to imagine the human record on a half mile relay would. (Only concerned about the battery part, the icecubes and wd40 seem entirely acceptable like-for-like enough with humans needing water)
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u/kgurniak91 Apr 19 '26
On longer runs (ultra) people are allowed to refuel by eating on checkpoints, taking naps etc. kinda same thing.
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u/dgsharp Apr 19 '26
I did a half marathon and they had tons of stuff for people to grab, water, little small sugary snacks, there were even porta potties.
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u/davin_bacon Apr 19 '26
But if someone physically aids your forward movement it's a dq. If you get carried away by the current on a water crossing and have to have the raft grab you, you get dq. I wouldn't not count this as a finish if I fell and couldn't get back on my feet on my own. I say this as someone who has ran a 22 hour 100 miler, no naps.
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u/golfstreamer Apr 19 '26
I think the actual impressive stat with robot running is how fast they run. I mean, they're obviously going to beat humans in endurance. So the longer the race the less impressive the feat of them winning is.
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u/Cenorg Apr 19 '26
It's quite the opposite.. As in nature, we still have much better endurance and would've easily won if their batteries couldn't be replaced
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u/jwegener Apr 19 '26
For now
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u/Momik Apr 19 '26
Right, for now. So letās stop building these things.
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u/sudo-joe Apr 19 '26
I'm fine building them if we can also use exoskeletons to run.
Would be actually kind of funny to see which would do better. Full robot or human cyborg thingy.
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u/teodorlojewski 42 Apr 20 '26
You clearly don't own an exoskeleton will become the new meme
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u/sudo-joe Apr 20 '26
I wish I had the disposable income to just dump $2-3k for a meme but alas my govt job pay isn't quite what it used to be. If I still have a job in another year or two then maybe I'll look at it again.
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u/WiglyWorm Apr 19 '26
So it shaved 7 minutes off the record while stopping for battery changes?
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u/imbued94 Apr 19 '26
Teslas ai robot car could do it in 7 minute and no stops.Ā
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u/daxophoneme Apr 19 '26
Wheels are so superior... Until you get to a flight of steps.
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u/overtoke Apr 19 '26
there were already robots that have wheel feet that can do stairs no problem
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u/___cjg___ Apr 19 '26
They had to replace the batteries in this run?
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u/Jenkinswarlock Agi 2026 | ASI 42 min after | extinction or immortality 24 hours Apr 19 '26
They had pit stops like in a nascar race, on one of the bots in the video You can see it has a backpack of a sort, itās actually filled with ice to keep the battery cool!
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u/Gilded-Mongoose Apr 19 '26
We also easily would've won if we ran faster than them.
And if my grandmother had wheels she'd be a bike.
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u/justforkinks0131 Apr 19 '26
funny callback, but what the other commenter said was important. Humans still outperform robots when it comes to endurance.
Us, fleshy, messy machines, are still somehow more efficient with energy than modern day robots. Which is kinda crazy, but it's true.
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u/ResearcherKnown73 Apr 19 '26
I mean, it's kinda obvious, that's what happens when u have 1 million years of iterations and constant upgrades lol
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u/Wicketwarrick191 Apr 19 '26
Entire data centers using up gW+ of electricity still canāt do what an average human brain can.
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u/Gallagger Apr 19 '26
1 hour is a long time. You need durable, well cooled motors, a big battery, and a very stable run.
I'd still agree actually making them run so fast is the hardest part, but this part shows mature hardware.11
u/LTerminus Apr 19 '26
Cooling is still an issue, it had an ice backpack on for the battery.
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u/xRyozuo Apr 19 '26
Crazy, all this tech and the best viable cooling method they could come up with was a backpackā¦ with ice
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u/LookIPickedAUsername Apr 19 '26
I mean, evolution has been working on this problem for hundreds of millions of years, and it still hasnāt come up with a better solution than āfill us up with water and let a little bit of leak out through tiny holes all over our bodiesā.
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u/27Rench27 Apr 19 '26
Same as how most of our power generation methods involve either steam or turbines. Sometimes we have actually just found the most efficient tech lol
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u/Fit-Level-4179 Apr 19 '26
Weirdly enough the impressive part is the endurance and battery life. Humans have crazy endurance, and these robots have battery guzzling GPUs and motors.
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u/Kindly_Somewhere1545 Apr 19 '26
This is like comparing driving a car and running itās not āwinningā because itās not the same
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u/CarrotSlight1860 Apr 19 '26
Mostly impressed by how upper body goes smoothly, doesnāt bounce at all, meaning you can arm them and they could easily aim on the move.
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u/Moral-Relativity Apr 19 '26
Is this really the singularity sub?! Wtf is with all the Luddite like comments? Why do humans need legs when we got cars?!
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u/thelittleking Apr 19 '26
Why do humans need legs
Yeah ok Taylor Swift, lemme just drive to the kitchen so I can hop a plane over to Starbucks
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u/BlackExcellence19 Apr 19 '26
The robot made by Honor aka the one that finished first does not mean it actually placed first since it was remote controlled. That bot actually came in 2nd. The bot that won first place was also made by Honor was completely autonomous with navigation. In fact Honorās bots all finished like top 10 I believe
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u/NathanJPearce Apr 19 '26
I did a Shazam to find out what the music was, and it is the perfect selection. Blade Runner by Ganger Baster.
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u/TurpentineEnjoyer Apr 19 '26
ok look I feel like this is a controversial take but... I've seen this come up a few times today and I'm not really impressed?
We've had cars that can beat the human running speed/endurance records for more than a century.
This is a bipedal machine built SPECIFICALLY to run a half marathon. I don't want a machine that can outrun me or replace all the art I consume with slop. I want a machine that can do the fucking chores.
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u/Belostoma Apr 19 '26
It's not really meant to be useful, but as a demonstration and testbed for engineering principles like energy-efficient, stable locomotion that will eventually be needed in chorebots. And maybe as a bit of a fun PR stunt for whoever's developing this stuff. I guarantee racing marathons is not the company's end goal. I agree this headline isn't a huge deal and more r/mildlyinteresting material.
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u/applestrudelforlunch Apr 19 '26
Chorebots or ā hear me out here ā infantrybots. Fun alternative concept that China and the US may also be considering.
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u/TheKnightIsForPlebs Apr 19 '26
May? They fucking better be. I swear to god if the government has been taxing the shit out of us for years to fuel the military and DARPA but somehow they manage to totally wiff on the ātech treeā because they over specced into old era boats and planes and we lose the robot warsā¦.Iāll riot harder than a frenchman
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u/fancczf Apr 19 '26
Running is a hard problem. Plus it is running in natural environment - unpredictable surface, natural lighting, obstacles - fully autonomously. Itās not that long ago we were amazed by a pre programmed robot to walk down a flight of stairs like a 80 years old grandma
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u/RallyPointAlpha Apr 19 '26
See, that's cool! The comparison of a robot and a human running a half-marathon seems pointless...of course the robots will out run us; after enough engineering, testing, and improvements.
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u/Momik Apr 19 '26
Sure, but those other end goals might well lead to something pretty horrifying. A robot winning a marathon is stupid, but a robot chasing down āenemy combatantsā and/or political dissidents is potentially more lucrative.
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u/furimmerkaiser Apr 19 '26
But can a car run towards you holding 2 machine guns in its hands?
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u/dudes_indian Apr 19 '26
The point isn't to prove 'machines run marathons faster than humans' we've solved that centuries ago by inventing the wheel. The point is to showcase the advancement in tech that allows human-like locomotion in humanoid robots possible. The advances in this field have obvious widespread use cases. Like how advances in F1 race cars trickle down into consumer cars to make them better. These purpose built robots are the same, a showcase of what the manufacturer can do.
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u/Turtlesaur Apr 19 '26
What do you mean now? You don't have to do half marathons anymore?
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u/phoneaccount56789 Apr 19 '26
Not saying you're wrong but this is a stepping stone to having a robo maid fold your laundry
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u/AirRic89 Apr 19 '26
I want a machine that can do the fucking chores
and the rich and powerful want machines that do what you do, just longer, faster and cheaper than you
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u/TurpentineEnjoyer Apr 19 '26
Precisely. Someone gets it.
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u/Time_Entertainer_319 Apr 19 '26
Bipedal Machines that do chores have to have great balance and agility.
Thatās what is being showcased here.
Use your brain sir.
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u/sprunkymdunk Apr 19 '26
You might be on the wrong sub then. Having a bi pedal robot run this fast is a significant achievement for the robotics field. Just take a look at the old Boston Dynamics videos. 5 years ago this kind of performance was still science fiction. Heck, just look at the videos from this race one year ago. Massive improvement. And pretty cool if you are a tech nerd
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u/kowdermesiter Apr 19 '26
Such a boring take, who cares this use-case it not for you? Chore robots are already happening. This is something else, competing with humans on a whole new level. These will have machine guns on them in 3, 2, 1.
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u/Moral-Relativity Apr 19 '26
Itās to spur the development of locomotion technology. So much of our environment is molded for the human form, so an artificial humanoid form for sure has its uses.
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u/Nviki Apr 19 '26
This is bait right?Ā
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u/LexyconG it's gonna be better than expected (soon) Apr 19 '26
No people really are that stupid. Why go to the moon ahh comment.
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u/Lazy-Term-1351 Apr 19 '26
Man this thing is awesome I wish they had this in New York City but I hear it's only in Beijing China wow so lucky
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u/Digital_Soul_Naga Apr 19 '26
the sound of them running at this speed and higher is what nightmares are made of
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u/lathallazar Apr 19 '26
Great, so now the robots will be able to run us down if for some reason the Bulletstorm misses. Beautiful future we have here.
Why do we need running robots.
I could think of potential reasons, in a world where everything isnt as fucked as it is here, but we ARE here, I donāt see anything good coming from this.
Also kind of seems like a āno shitā sort of outcome.
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u/Turtlesaur Apr 19 '26
Intimidation as they run you down in the streets. In before they wear heelie shoes.
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u/Strange-Branch-293 Apr 19 '26
Because then they can replace war fighters, security guards, police officers, plumbers, electricians, laborers on farms, maintenance techs
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Apr 19 '26
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u/rietstengel Apr 19 '26
And to say a robot broke it is simply incorrect. It didnt break a human record, as it isnt a human. A horse cant break the human record either.
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u/lance-england Apr 19 '26
I think I can beat that robot in a car so, scoreboard
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u/GraceToSentience AGI avoids animal abuseā Apr 19 '26
I can beat usain bolt in a car as well, it's not that impressive though.
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u/InternationalMatch13 Apr 19 '26
Now sprinkle some light debris on the track and compare
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u/kiki-le-koala Apr 19 '26
There was incredible advancement this last year in robot ability to navigate hard terrain.Ā It's almost a solved problem.
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u/CivBEWasPrettyBad Apr 19 '26
Thing made for a single purpose beats general purpose machine at thing it was explicitly designed for. More at 10
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u/ManaRockGamesUK Apr 19 '26
I hope my phone can read this as well and feel pretty shitty about its own battery performance.
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u/AmPotatoGay Apr 20 '26
isn't this kind of just like saying a hippos bite force can break a human records bite force? like, yeah. obviously? what makes me more concerned is why are people doing this, other than to create mass murdering machines that legally can't be put to jail or death since they're not "living" or people, but rather are property
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u/Living_Particular963 Apr 19 '26
r/runningcirclejerk won't appreciate the heel striking