>The kung fu routines and dances mask a fundamental problem: These robots are too slow and error-prone for most industrial work.
Not just error-prone ... these things are seriously dangerous: one mistaken move and they can take someone's head or limb off! Any American roboticist will tell you that humanoids are a decade (or more) away from being practically and safely used alongside humans.
China seems to be falling for the classic trap of socialism: the government has been able to manage the economy successfully (just as the Russians did ... for awhile), so they think they can continue to do so when technology (or anything else) changes.
But humans make mistakes when they try to predict the future (markets do too of course, but they make a lot less mistakes). The Chinese leaders think they can make humanoids happen the same way they took over the electric vehicle market (through heavy government support/spending), but government support can only influence the pace of technology; it can't fundamentally change it.
I think you're overindexing on government involvement and underindexing on FOMO driving investors to jump on any new trend. When Unitree briefly reached a $69B market cap after IPO earlier this month, that wasn't because of government intervention, but because people were bamboozled by their tech demos.
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 15.0 ms ] threadNot just error-prone ... these things are seriously dangerous: one mistaken move and they can take someone's head or limb off! Any American roboticist will tell you that humanoids are a decade (or more) away from being practically and safely used alongside humans.
China seems to be falling for the classic trap of socialism: the government has been able to manage the economy successfully (just as the Russians did ... for awhile), so they think they can continue to do so when technology (or anything else) changes.
But humans make mistakes when they try to predict the future (markets do too of course, but they make a lot less mistakes). The Chinese leaders think they can make humanoids happen the same way they took over the electric vehicle market (through heavy government support/spending), but government support can only influence the pace of technology; it can't fundamentally change it.
https://chinai.substack.com/p/chinai-372-chinas-overhyped-em... is an interesting read on the financial exuberance in China's robot startup ecosystem, especially if you read the full original article.