It’s not unusual for new tech to fail onstage. Russia’s first humanoid robot, Aidol, joins the ranks of Tesla, Honda, Apple, Microsoft, and others in crashing and burning during its unveiling. Pretty much every robotics company has experienced a failure like this, particularly in the earlier stages of development, but Idol, the Russian company behind the ‘bot, may have rushed its on-stage reveal.
Aidol worship?
To be fair, competition in the robotics sector is becoming increasingly fierce. China’s Unitree, in particular, has shown off excellent work getting artificial humanoid skeletons to perform remarkable feats, while Boston Dynamics has been in the game for ages and is similarly skilled. Aidol’s debut saw the robot march out on stage, albeit a little unsteadily. It was only when it attempted to wave at the crowd in Moscow earlier this week that it overbalanced and took a little snooze.
The crew shepherding the robot was unable to right it. Eventually, a large black cloth was tossed over the malfunctioning humanoid. Just what the disaster presages for the robot’s future isn’t clear, but the on-stage collapse has certainly generated more publicity than Aidol would have seen if it had performed as planned.
It could be that the robot’s planned future in “industrial and service applications,” which would see it take part in “manufacturing tasks, as well as service scenarios such as banks, airports, and other public spaces,” has been hampered, but the crash could turn out to be a net positive. After all, Aidol has hit more eyeballs than it would have otherwise. A little more time in the engineering bay would see the robot performing much more accurately.
The robot’s name references integrated artificial intelligence, which is supposed to permit the identification of speakers, answering of questions, and other tasks that would only require Aidol’s torso. Think virtual receptionists and information functions, like finding out where the one store you’re trying to find in the mall is located. Those functions may well work better (and don’t require walking). It could be that’s where Aidol will roll out first. It certainly can’t walk there just yet.
