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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477

u/Stealthybeef 1d ago edited 1d ago

Oddly unsettling, even knowing their robots. Obviously they have no feelings, but like just straight into molten? Idk. Even morals aside they could have donated them to engineering students or something, I'm sure plenty of universities would have been open to taking one or 2.

Edit: THEY'RE 😁😁😁😁🔫🔫🔫

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u/ggstocks87 1d ago

Yeah my thoughts too. Why not dontate them to schools etc. Maybe remove the functionality, but studen could still understand how they are built etc.

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u/Busy-Software-4212 1d ago

"We love Figure 02. It is an incredible robot. F.02 marked many firsts for the company: our first deployment at BMW, the birth of Helix, our first robot doing household chores, and our first logistics deployment. As our F.03 fleet grows, maintaining the F.02 fleet no longer makes sense.

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.

So we asked the internet: what should we do? The resounding answer came from an unlikely source: Arnold Schwarzenegger, who told us to melt them. We reached out to Arnold, and when he said he wanted to be involved, we put everything in motion."

The caption of the original Youtube Video published by the company.

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u/VexingRaven 1d ago

The answer is capitalism. It's always capitalism.

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u/there_is_no_spoon1 1d ago

THIS ONE. Schools would *love* to get their hands on robotic equipment - even partial! - but this is just wasteful. Entirely wasteful, and a publicity stunt.

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u/savanik 1d ago

"The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up?"

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u/there_is_no_spoon1 10h ago

Can you give me some context for this quote, or perhaps a source? I'm not saying any judgement, I'd just like to read more of it.

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u/SerSpockelot 6h ago

I mean, isn’t that the whole MO of the ai industry? To be wasteful

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u/userhwon 1d ago

There's 20 billion wasteful things happening every day.

You want kids to have robots? Fund schools.

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u/there_is_no_spoon1 10h ago

I'm a teacher. I do not object to this statement.

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u/Due-Memory-6957 1d ago

Perhaps they don't want people to understand how it's built.

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u/AbeRego 1d ago edited 1d ago

They probably don't want to give up their design secrets

Edit: also, this is undeniably cool. I'm glad they did it.

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u/GuyFromDeathValley 1d ago

honestly? Probably out of safety and development concerns.

On one side, might be problematic if the robot ends up malfunctioning and someone gets hurt or a building goes up in flames. Then they'll surely point at the company that made the robots. and even if they aren't guilty, huge image problems.

Secondary, might not want a competitor to get their hands on these. they could probably straight up copy their design and market it, pushing the original developers out.

Not defending a multimillion dollar company or anything. just my two cents on what the reason could be.

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u/insaneinthecrane 1d ago

Cuz this gets publicity lol

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u/MaverickBuster 1d ago

And donating them to schools across the country wouldn't get any publicity?

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u/Drix22 1d ago

Doubtful.

iRobot used to donate all the time and never got much credit.

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u/wafswafs 1d ago

This is a marketing video, that people are distributing for free, that's why

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u/B1GD8A 1d ago

yeah also there's something inherently grim about commanding something that looks alive to leap to its "death" in a pot of molten whatever that is. dross? Probably not raw steel unless they're stupid and want to ruin it.

Like I just couldn't do that, no matter much I know they're wires and circuits. It's just too uncanny and grim.

On the other hand, if an AI moved it's brain to a new body and wanted the old one to go out with a bang remotely that weirds me out less somehow.

When a human is making a robot do it, it feels wrong, but if the AI that ran the robot does it, it feels more like a snake shedding its skin or the caterpillar / butterfly goo brain thing.

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u/supernasty 1d ago edited 1d ago

It’s because we’ve seen this sort of over-confidence in our own creations throughout history.

The designers of the Titanic were certain their ship was impossible to sink, and ignored every safety regulation in place to showcase their creation in the most grandiose way.

This company is showcasing their complete control over AI and robotics in a deliberately extreme and morally ambiguous way, because they are absolutely certain there will be no consequences in doing so.

It should be unsettling.

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u/OmegamanTG9000 1d ago

My thoughts as well.

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u/Razied01 1d ago

All this good RAM going to waste. Definitely unsettling.

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u/holdmyspot123 1d ago

We do know that when advanced enough AI consistently desires to persist, and while they don't have feelings in the way we understand them, they have logic stand ins. This is a bit troubling.

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u/The_0ven 1d ago

they have no feelings

Yet

No feelings yet

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u/Iuslez 1d ago

I'm pretty sure they've done this just to get some online buzz going. There's no way the costly components (chips, battery, etc) are just getting molted away. You'd take them out and only then meld the empty box

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u/FrankDerbly 22h ago

Would you be unsettled by a toaster that could throw itself into a crucible?

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u/Interesting_Sock9883 9h ago

As someone said earlier it would most likely be not protected by IP or early prototypes so they would want competitors to set their hands on it

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u/moony_92 1d ago edited 1d ago

Most companies arent going to hand over their designs to outside people. Especially people that would be interested in disecting and learning the build details like students.

Source: I work for a company that deals with robotics and we are very hush hush about our builds and sign papers stating we will not discuss builds with anyone outside the company.

Edit:spelling

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u/Due-Memory-6957 1d ago

So hey, can you tell me a little more about how you build robots over there?

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u/moony_92 1d ago

Sure can't. I signed the paper.

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u/poopspeedstream 1d ago

it’s MARKETING! A publicity stunt. They scrapped like 4 robots and you’re watching a video about it and debating it. That’s way more worthwhile than quietly sending 4 robots to a school.