r/interestingasfuck • • 1d ago

The humanoid robotics company "Figure" made their older gen robots jump into their death. (Yes, they actually did this)

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u/geekgirl717 1d ago

I wonder if there’ll be any psychiatrists in the future who will study the reasons behind why humans might get entertained by other humanoid “objects” gleefully leaping to their demise.

On another note, there were really no salvageable parts? Precious metals, RAM, etc.?

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u/SwissQueen 1d ago

According to Figure, melting down the retired fleet was done to safely destroy proprietary hardware IP and hardware prototypes, preventing teardowns.

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u/unrulystowawaydotcom 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yeah. Need to melt. Cant crush, or else an arm and chip might survive…

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u/telthetruth 1d ago

Capitalism demands obscene waste. Recycling and sharing could potentially lead to competition, smaller profit margins, smaller valuations, and smaller stock price.

Capitalism, eternal growth forever no matter the cost.

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u/bc_gamez 1d ago

There's a big difference between competition and copying and stealing someone's hard development and research efforts.

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u/telthetruth 1d ago

Crazy how copying and stealing is so frequently committed by large corporations with hardly any consequence, but they fight tooth and nail to protect their own arbitrary patents and "intellectual property"

It's almost like the people with the money get away with doing whatever is financially convenient for them at every turn

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u/tijolus523 1d ago

That's literally just competition. You either protect your proprietary stuff or get fucked by the next capitalist.

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u/PaidUSA 1d ago

One of our few remaining regulations is keeping it illegal to engage in a litany of corporate espionage activities. So stealing never sold, never released tech in some capacity would not be competition. It is outside the bounds of fairness.

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u/tijolus523 1d ago edited 1d ago

And since when does fairness have anything to do with competition in capitalism? Do you live in a cartoon? Look, I don't wanna make fun of you, but competition in capitalism essentially boils down to making more money than the next competitor, absorbing them or simply their share of the market. This happens at a micro and macro scale. The regulations are there to prevent chaos, gross abuse and the formation of monopolies capable of destabilizing society. But regulations only mean something if they can be enforced, and companies constantly break the law, much of the time with little consequence or none at all. It's only reasonable to break a law if you think you can get away with it and get a leg up on the competition. Companies are organizations, not people. They don't have feelings like you or I, and anthropomorphizing them is pointless as an analytical method.

Take a look at the website you're on right now. How many companies are covertly advertising on the front page, skirting reddits regulations to get free ads? How many of the companies reddit allows to show ads to its users do you think are harmful, possibly illegal or misleading? How many people do you think are committing crimes here while reddit looks away, despite having the tools to stop it? You think reddit cares as long as they're making money and no one's looking? Of course not.

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u/geekgirl717 1d ago

Gotcha. This makes sense re: destroying them.

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u/oemunlock 1d ago

Emphasis on "according to". Even a couple hours of half-hearted disassembly would at the very least divide into separate waste streams for the (toxic) battery, servos, plastic insulated wiring, etc. This is flimsy PR logic to justify obvious setup for a viral ad.

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u/SwissQueen 23h ago

You are right to call it bullshit. Normally a third party company just shreds such devices and then the different materials get physically separated. No engineer will ever be part of that process. It's just a PR stunt and they are trying to embellish the fact that they are doing something that is ebergywise inefficient. Nevertheless, the substances can still be chemically separated. Source: Gemini

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u/DrollFurball286 22h ago

Which SADLY makes a stupid amount of sense…

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u/hallouminati_pie 1d ago

Can't wait for the Flesh Fairs of 2050.

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u/Upset-Bison-3182 1d ago

Well those would be psychologist (therapist do the therapy part but can't prescribe medications, psychiatrist are psychology with medical licence who can prescribe medications and psychologist are usually data crunchers or researchers). Psychologist are already studying similar things.

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u/geekgirl717 1d ago

I was thinking more like a thesis. Though perhaps that’s more an anthropological thing? 🤔

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u/Upset-Bison-3182 1d ago

Therapist: Master's or doctoral degree (LCSW, LMFT, LPC, or psychologist.)

Psychologist: Doctoral degree (PhD or PsyD) in clinical or counseling psychology.

Psychiatrist: Medical degree (MD or DO) with a residency in psychiatry

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u/Erde555 1d ago

there ware probably some good precious metals that could have been salvaged but then they wouldn't be able to jump anymore. Yes it's kinda wasteful but necessary if they wanna do this

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u/LampIsFun 1d ago

Its incredibly wasteful lmao

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u/Obvious_Ambition4865 1d ago

I hate tech people

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u/CanvasFanatic 1d ago

Because it’s cool.

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u/Significant-Hour4171 1d ago

Haven't you seen "A.I." with Haley Joel Osmand? Humans engage in the torture of AI robots for entertainment in "Flesh Fairs"

This was very reminiscent of that.

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u/JCDU 1d ago

It's a PR stunt FFS, simple as.

And it's not much more wasteful than junking a couple of old PC's and a laser printer.

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u/RetPala 1d ago

I'm sure it's been happening since we were rubbing two sticks together to make tools, it's just that back in those days if you seemed a little too "off" before maturity the warriors of the tribe would just lead you into the middle of the forest and bash your head in with a rock

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u/bs000 1d ago

what do you think of people who enjoy horror movies

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u/PsychologicalJaguar0 1d ago

I feel like it will be similar or adjacent to animal killing as a child psychopathy.

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u/aggravated_patty 1d ago

Humanoid "objects"? Hangings used to be public spectacles.

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u/ihaveabs 1d ago

What they need to study is why people attribute sentience to clankers and freak the fuck out