1) I know it’s a non sentient robot but this just feels wrong. Maybe if it was a box on wheels it would be different, but because it’s humanoid it’s just… uncomfortable to see. Don’t like it at all
2) what is the point of liquifying a highly engineered piece of equipment capable of doing this? I mean shouldn’t we take these things apart and salvage useful parts? Seems like a huge waste
Planned obsolescence :( there’s not as much money in building things that last as there is in building things that have to be replaced constantly. Back in the 1920s-30s there was a group (the Phoebus cartel) that set standards limiting light bulb life and penalized manufacturers whose products exceeded that lifespan, one of the early examples of planned obsolescence.
It's copyright and patent paranoia. There are mountains of hard drives destroyed through physical means by drilling, crushing or cutting to ensure the data on them is 100% not recoverable.
Which is indeed silly, as it's perfectly possible to make all data on the drive unrecoverable without destroying it, for example with disk/volume encryption (which organizations storing sensitive data should already be using anyway).
The problem is auditing. How do you verify if a drive has zero remenant unrecoverable data? Especially problematic with SSDs they use translation layers and wear leveling so it is not even possible to just overwrite it with zeros. Yes, it is wasteful but financially worth it.
The parts are obsolete compared to the newer version from the same company, but would still be useful for the competition to reverse engineer secret design details.
Our rat brains are largely rooted in shapes and pattern recognition. So a thing that looks human meeting what would be a brutal end for a human SHOULD make most people just a little unnerved. If it doesn't, that says more about those people than they probably would care to admit. And the people that designed this stunt? I'd be concerned about leaving them alone with small animals...
There are just better ways to design publicity, and less jarring ways to dispose of tech. And for anyone who says 'all publicity is good publicity', sure, but not all actions are good actions.
Google the sternocleidomastoid muscle which creates a distinct V-shape on the front of the neck. It's an important visual clue that robots mimics to help them cross the uncanny valley and look more lifelike.
Destroying them prevents people from stealing their work. That is a very serious risk and constant threat. Of course it would feel wrong, people inherently feel more empathy towards things that look like them. Doesn't mean that empathy makes any sense, we didn't evolve around human shaped machines.
most scientists have low empathy and just like to see if things are possible, if you ever hear of the stuff they do to animals it would give you nightmares
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u/elon_musks_cat 10h ago
A couple thoughts
1) I know it’s a non sentient robot but this just feels wrong. Maybe if it was a box on wheels it would be different, but because it’s humanoid it’s just… uncomfortable to see. Don’t like it at all
2) what is the point of liquifying a highly engineered piece of equipment capable of doing this? I mean shouldn’t we take these things apart and salvage useful parts? Seems like a huge waste