Russian Robot Faceplants on Stage During Moscow Showcase

These days, the tech world is obsessed with humanoid robots, and every company worth its salt is racing to develop its own bipedal droid that it can push to market. Unfortunately, a lot of these robots don’t seem to work very well yet. Case in point: This week, a Russian company unveiled its much-hyped prototype for its humanoid bot, only to have the machine face-plant onstage in front of hundreds of onlookers. The robot in question, AIdol, is the product of a Russian company called Idol, which was presenting at a forum from the New Technology Coalition, which The Telegram describes as an “association of companies for the development of humanoid robots.” The bot, described as “Russia’s first anthropomorphic robot,” unfortunately lost balance, fell down, and broke onstage. Numerous outlets have noted the sad irony that the event was playing music from the Rocky soundtrack when the bot took its tumble. That said, there are other robotics companies that are doing amazing (if not deeply unsettling) things in the same space where other companies seem to be floundering. For instance, there’s Boston Dynamics, the company that brought us the 4-legged robot “dog” dubbed “Spot.” The company has also had some success with building humanoid-style bots. “Atlas,” the bipedal robot produced with funding from DARPA, is notably more capable than a lot of its peers. Again, I don’t know if that’s a good thing