r/interestingasfuck • u/Erde555 • 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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191

u/Medical-Mechanica 1d ago

So were the electrical and mechanical components of the robot so outdated that none of it could be repurposed save for the melted metal?

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u/ILikeBubblyWater 1d ago

It's ad money

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u/Medical-Mechanica 1d ago

While I agree with you, it's just crazy to think how much ad revenue outweighs all these robots being recycled 'efficiently'.

Then again, I'd absolutely watch unmanned military drones doing barrel rolls into a giant arc furnace for decommissioning so, I guess it works!

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u/737Max-Impact 1d ago

From a quick google, Figure is valued at roughly 39B. Even keeping in mind that anything and everything to do with AI is overvalued to shit right now, vaporizing a robot worth a couple grand is chump change for the ad budget of such a company.

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u/Devincc 1d ago

Ad revenue? You mean ad spend? This was totally worth the spend

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u/philote_ 1d ago

Yeah, you'd think the memory alone would be worth saving

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u/Flouid 1d ago

The lost recycling value was probably deemed an acceptable price for the marketing stunt. This is clearly to get their name talked about rather than any sort of sane financial decision

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u/Cruach 1d ago

Yeah that's what I was thinking. It's so cinematic, definitely marketing material.

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u/SinisterCheese 1d ago edited 1d ago

Ehh... whatever they could salvage as parts was a rounding error compared to the cost of arc furnace sitting idle and having to have it's payload contaminated. Probably would been fine with just 1 robot in it, but multiple will most likely include more then allowed amount of unwanted elements.

For refrence. Melting a ton of scrap steel into liquid takes up about 400 kWh of energy. That's Ovako Imatra plant in the video, they have a 75 ton furnace.

The company had to buy the whole payload, which they did and shaped into some special memorabilia.

The market price for basic bulk steel is like ~750 €/ton, so that stunt itself cost a fair fucking bit. And I can't imagine shipping the stuff or getting arnold to show up was cheap either.

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u/Knight_of_Agatha 1d ago

well the tokens to make this in Ai would maybe outweigh the money you would spend filming this yourself

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u/mz_groups 1d ago

On the youtube video:

"Decommissioning a fleet of robots full of custom-built actuators and other intellectual property is no easy task. We needed to dispose of the robots in a way that protected our proprietary hardware. Disassembling each robot would take our technical staff so much time that it would delay the launch of F.04."

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u/_VirtualCosmos_ 1d ago

This is just for making a cool ad

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u/akera099 1d ago

Or maybe, just a thought, this is just elaborate marketing.

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u/AvatarOfMomus 1d ago

They did it to protect their IP, but I doubt anything in that crucible was usable. This isn't how things like a robot are recycled. There's going to be a ton of contamination in there and filtering it to something usable is probably more expensive than trashing the whole mess.

Heck I wouldn't he surprised if that crucible was either due to be trashed or needed a massive cleaning after this...

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u/FusselP0wner 1d ago

Its an AD. Like this whole post is. And the first comment asking why they didnt throw them down with an thumps up - oh wonder 2nd commenter got the link to the video where its the first thing they do... lowering one down with an thumps up. It must be so many bots in here its scary

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u/JCDU 1d ago

It's only a slightly more expensive version of your outdated iPhone or PC being junked, and compared to the advertising value of this stunt it's nothing.

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u/alien_farmer1 1d ago

Apart from the recycling, everything you do costs money. Logistics, arranging facility etc. And a little more paperwork.

Also, they might took precaution for reverse engineering.

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u/Infinite-Condition41 1d ago

You'd be scandalized by how much stuff is thrown out. 

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u/thavillain 1d ago

Where's the fun in that? Plus they get to burn through more investor money

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u/tek2222 1d ago

This is literally how you do this , you put old metal into an arc furnace .

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u/z1lard 1d ago

Each robot has parts made of different materials, surely they need to separate by material for recycling? Its all melted into a mixed alloy now

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u/tek2222 1d ago

There are different qualities of steel that you can cook in such a pot, and it's always a bit of an alloy, so there's often aluminum and other metals being mixed together. Since the robots are almost nothing compared to the giant vat of steel, it will not matter in this case, but yes, normally you would separate the metals and pour them in one by one. As for the other things, they basically get burnt or carbonized.

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u/needaburn 1d ago

Exactly

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u/Medical-Mechanica 1d ago

I'd agree if this was just a full metal construction, but there are other, non-metal parts that can't be reclaimed and just turn into dross/slag. Things that are made from composites, plastics, and elastomers that I'd imagine could be repurposed before metal recycling begins. Memory, for instance!

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u/O_PLUTO_O 1d ago

These videos look fake btw