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172

Chinese company busted showing off humanoid robots that actually have humans inside (futurism.com)

submitted 2 months ago by tardigrada@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

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Archived version

During the World Robot Conference 2024 in Beijing from Aug 21 - Aug 25, the company Animatronics company EX-Robot (or EX Robots as reported by some news media) hired 2 women cosplayed as robots to spice up the exhibition.

Footage making the rounds on social media shows what appear to be astonishingly lifelike humanoid robots posing at the World Robot Conference in Beijing last week.

But instead of showing off the latest and greatest in humanoid robotics, two of the "robots" turned out to be human women cosplaying as futuristic gynoids, presumably hired by animatronics company Ex-Robots.

"Many people think these are all robots without realizing they’re actually two human beings cosplayed as robots among the animatronics," reporter Byron Wan tweeted.

While somewhat uncanny at first glimpse, the illusion was shattered once an image of one of the hired women having lunch at the event started circulating online. Even humanoid robot cosplayers have to eat, it turns out.

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[–] PatheticGroundThing@beehaw.org 41 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Wait a moment, did anyone actually think those were robots? Did anyone claim they were actual robots? I saw the videos going around and people were generally just impressed at the makeup and costume work.

Replies in the twitter link make me laugh though.

@VicBeeSee: Full on idiotic post, the company didn't pretend they were robots.

@Byron_Wan: It did… it didn’t tell others that those were human beings.

This either sounds like someone trying to make an issue out of nothing, or someone who got momentarily tricked and is embarrassed about it.

[–] tardigrada@beehaw.org 13 points 2 months ago (2 children)

@PatheticGroundThing

It's in the article:

Why the company chose to hire human cosplayers for last week's World Robot Conference remains unclear. Were they hired as "booth babes," an outdated and sexist form of promotion? Or were they purposefully there to trick attendees into thinking they were robots?

Given the reception of the videos on social media, it's possible it's a mix of both.

[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Asian countries are still going all in on "booth babes", so that's probably it.

[–] Comment105@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago

I mean it still works for getting attention, but it's not exactly respectable and there are some people who really don't like them.

[–] PatheticGroundThing@beehaw.org 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

So nobody actually claimed they were robots. This article is just sensationalist clickbait garbage for people who really want to see a chinese company get "BUSTED!" for something. Twitter replies are full of racism.

[–] tardigrada@beehaw.org 1 points 2 months ago

@PatheticGroundThing It really helps if you read the entire article before posting.