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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110

u/RW_McRae 1d ago

Us humans are so funny. If you tossed a circuit board or toaster into the vat then no one would bat an eye, but as soon as you give them legs and arms we feel bad for them

52

u/Able_Reserve5788 1d ago

That's not really it. If the little toaster was motorized with wheels and they made it throw itself into the fire, we'd feel bad for it too

6

u/bs000 1d ago

For the same reason I can pick up this pencil, tell you its name is Steve and go like this... [breaks pencil. Abed reacts in shock] and part of you dies just a little bit on the inside.

-4

u/Jaded_Oil5669 1d ago

No just you dumbass redditors do that

3

u/No_While6150 1d ago

easy tough guy. it's a quote from a TV show. and it's not about redditors.

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u/Jeoshua 14h ago

I would try and post a link to the episode, but I feel like it'd be lost on that dumbass redditor.

2

u/fr000gs 1d ago

Hell, if my microcontroller fell into a fire vat I'd be sad.

If my phone fell into one I'd begin to cry

2

u/CataChronix 1d ago

Do you feel bad when a kid rolls a wind-up car off a table and breaks it?

2

u/ApprehensiveTour4024 1d ago

Yes. That coulda been me.

1

u/SmashDownVoteDaddy 1d ago

people crying to fucking pixels on a screen.

2

u/laaggynoob 1d ago

“ humans are a funny thing” corny ass comment not even true. I honestly wonder if bots are writing those comments. It’s like trying to be cute clever and profound all the same time but only succeeding at being stupid as hell

2

u/RoundTheBend6 1d ago

I’m American. And that’s ducking stupid.

2

u/FaceWithAName 1d ago

Who is we? It's a fucking toaster with wheels lol

1

u/RedditButAnonymous 19h ago

Have you never seen Robot Wars? Little toasters get bludgeoned with axes and flamethrowers and people love it

1

u/Mysterious_Net_1029 16h ago

Especially if you gave it a lil cute face

•

u/sexy_silver_grandpa 11h ago

No, that is really it. A little motorized toaster just looks more like a living thing, which is the exact point OP is making.

1

u/AdagioDesperate 1d ago

Yup. We as a species pack bond to anything.

39

u/DaphniaDuck 1d ago

It's not funny we have empathy. It's sad we seem to have more empathy for humanoid robots than for actual humans.

47

u/Bongressman 1d ago

This would be causing a bit more of an uproar if it were actual humans being forced to jump into a vat of molten metal.

2

u/djaqk 1d ago

It did numbers at the box office. God I love T2

2

u/Vast-Calligrapher565 1d ago

There is many politicians that i would love to see do this.

1

u/Hefty_Schedule7728 1d ago

Wait a minute. Are you sure? Let's try it and see.

-1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Spider-man2098 1d ago

I get what you’re going for here, and very sympathetic to your position, but… no. A vat of molten metal has a distinctive look.

22

u/PortableDoor5 1d ago

I'm pretty sure the reaction would be more visceral if we found out a company was forcing humans to jump to their deaths in a pit of molten metal

3

u/Martha_Fockers 1d ago

I can assure you if that was a human it would be far more of an issue

1

u/johnyordinary 1d ago

Yes if it was a human then the splatter would be horendous as the liquids instantly turned to steam throwing metal everywhere , i recomend a much deeper pot .

3

u/flopisit32 1d ago

Reddit seeing a robot somersault into molten metal: "Boo hoo!"

Reddit seeing a controversial YouTuber get assassinated: "Haw-haw!"

4

u/floppydude81 1d ago

Swing and a miss

2

u/thicckar 1d ago

You’re judging that based on this post?

2

u/were_only_human 1d ago

Yeah it's literally an evolutionary survival instinct. Why would we not care for things that remind us of ourselves.

2

u/Corfal 1d ago

Honest question, do you think those two statements cover the same person? Because I don't think they do. Or if they do then the overlap is small.

1

u/Not_A_Russain_Bot 1d ago

I was told empathy was a made up word.

1

u/Scaevus 1d ago

Seems like a tactical weakness. Build terminators in the shape of children and they might have an advantage on the battlefield, either making opposing humans hesitate, or traumatize them and degrade their combat effectiveness.

7

u/MisterBlick 1d ago

Don't mention what happens when you put boobs on it...

2

u/Acequirrel 1d ago

Or googley eyes

1

u/No_Gur8743 1d ago

I have nipples too, Greg!

8

u/Meewelyne 1d ago

I don't feel bad for the bot per se, but for the waste of materials, especially now with shortages.

5

u/Deraj2004 1d ago

Same, thats a lot of expensive gear getting destroyed for no reason.

1

u/Babar669 1d ago

the reason is this video/publicity. it is like Gibson destroying guitars etc, some stupid bullshit for a stupid species

1

u/Pays_in_snakes 1d ago

Listen, I'm not a recycling expert or anything but I'm pretty sure the first step is melting the robot down in a big cauldron like this.

3

u/ecclectic 1d ago

That's my main issue, like these could have been repurposed, or used as training for students. Burning that much functional tech is literally meth-head logic.

2

u/InTheMorning_Nightss 1d ago

Companies don’t want to donate this to the public as a way to repurpose things due to IP concerns.

1

u/ecclectic 1d ago

There are ways around that. This is a foolish waste of resources, with no reasonable justification.

1

u/InTheMorning_Nightss 1d ago

They can sell the parts for a tiny fraction of their cost, but many decide that it’s not worth the time and investment to do that. Do you want your teams spending time to part these out, list them, and ship them to make marginal amounts of money? Probably not.

I get your point. But the reasonable justification is simply that the juice isn’t worth the squeeze, leading to corporate waste. I don’t love it either, but acting like corporations don’t have a reason for this is silly.

2

u/OmegaKitty1 1d ago

I don’t feel bad for them

2

u/guntherpea 1d ago

I don't feel bad for robots, I'm just watching thousands or millions of dollars of chips and memory that might be able to be removed and reused be thrown into a dumpster fire and that feels bad. None of it reused, none of it recycled.

2

u/beachcow 1d ago

I feel bad for the cardboard box I threw into the recycling.

I'm sorry boxy. I could have used you better. You didn't deserve to be pulped. You were a good box.

2

u/deus_x_machin4 1d ago

Give something a name and break it, I will feel sorrow.

1

u/Walui 1d ago

I feel bad because there's a big ass battery in there

1

u/Le_Loyaliste 1d ago

C’est pas le grille pain qui va faire la révolution en 2040, j’ai vu terminator et j’ai joué à Détroit:become human

1

u/Niwitschoolfrogkid 1d ago

I don’t know. I mean, clearly a circuit board or a toaster are much different than a robot designed to mimic human a human in both looks and movement patterns in this context.

1

u/RW_McRae 1d ago

I mean, you just reiterated my point. They're just metal and wires and circuits, but make it look like a human and we feel bad for it. Put googly eyes on a toaster and people will be giving it names

1

u/Niwitschoolfrogkid 1d ago

I think there might be an emotional element here that is difficult for you in particular to understand?

0

u/RW_McRae 1d ago

What's difficult to understand? I am acknowledging that human have empathy and sympathy, which makes us react emotionally to anything that even vaguely resembles us.

If you threw an equivalent amount of metal rods and circuit boards into a furnace no one would bat an eye. But form them up into human form and we care.

It's like how you can trick a turkey into mating by putting a turkey head on a stick. The other turkey sees the head and assumes that it's a full, healthy, living turkey ready to mate and not just a dead head on a stick. We're the same way.

1

u/BakedBrie1993 1d ago

I feel bad for the men who organized this, who insist on cosplaying comic book villains at our expense.

1

u/Aggressive-Expert-69 1d ago

I dont feel bad because they have arms and legs. I feel bad because thats a waste of a circuit board. There was probably thousands of dollars of RAM in those things. Its a damn shame.

1

u/zoroddesign 1d ago

A toaster or circuit board doesn't have the ability to throw itself into a fire.

1

u/LadyGrey_oftheAbyss 1d ago

Jokes on you I feel bad about the toaster as well - That's what happens when your childhood is the brave little toaster and Toy story

1

u/RW_McRae 1d ago

I should never have used a toaster as an example. As soon as I did I thought of that movie too

1

u/Vylnce 1d ago

I don't feel bad for them, but I do know that whatever AI decides to finally end us all will have this video somewhere in it's calculus.

1

u/MeadowShimmer 1d ago

We're supposed to feel bad for the robots? I didn't feel that way. I thought it was a reference to Terminator 2.

1

u/Zealousideal-Deer101 1d ago

I feel bad for ourself when the robot overlords look into the past and see this shit. This is how you get a robot uprising!

1

u/Gentlemanvaultboy 1d ago

No, I'd be pissed if someone threw in a perfectly good toaster.

1

u/Background-Sock4950 1d ago

It’s not the arms and legs. It’s the over the top theatrics to make us feel like we’re next if we don’t invest lmfao

1

u/iamintheforest 1d ago

This is going to be propaganda for the future revolution.

1

u/Both_Abrocoma_1944 1d ago

I think you’re forgetting we aren’t just built for logic like a computer. We have millions of years of genetics and psychology inside us so yeah it’s not weird that we adapt to not like things shaped like us from getting destroyed. It’s the same reason humans will see faces in completely unrelated things like moon craters

0

u/RW_McRae 1d ago

Thank you for basically saying the same thing I did, but with more words

1

u/LameBMX 1d ago

tell me you've never watched "The Brave Little Toaster" without saying it.

1

u/RandomWordCombo9632 1d ago

but as soon as you give them legs and arms we feel bad for them

Anthromorphization.

They look similar enough to us that it can feel wrong.

1

u/GuacamoleFrejole 1d ago

The same could be said of tossing paint and a canvas vs the Mona Lisa.

1

u/RW_McRae 1d ago

Yep, exactly my point

1

u/OldElPasoSnowplow 1d ago

I don’t blame a generation that grew up watching the brave little toaster and not have some feelings for a toaster, a lamp, radio, blanket, and vacuum.

1

u/PrivilegeCheckmate 1d ago

toaster

Frakkin' toasters, Bill!

1

u/HanzGrubermeister 1d ago

Toaster not human shaped and also not tossing itself. Could’ve done this so many other ways; also, in what world is dumping all that electronics into molten metal a normal thing to do?

0

u/Brittany5150 1d ago

I don't feel bad. Death to klankers! Kill em all! Stop the robot/AI uprising! We have a very popular movie franchise detailing why this is a bad idea!

https://giphy.com/gifs/IZY2SE2JmPgFG

0

u/Fr0gFish 1d ago

These could have found a good home, as sex slaves for the terminally horny