Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
AI Robotics

Russia's AI Robot Falls Seconds After Being Unveiled 112

Posted by BeauHD from the slow-clap dept.
Russia's first AI humanoid robot, Aldol, fell just seconds after its debut at a technology event in Moscow on Tuesday. "The robot was being led on stage to the soundtrack from the film 'Rocky,' before it suddenly lost its balance and fell," reports the BBC. "Assistants could then be seen scrambling to cover it with a cloth -- which ended up tangling in the process." Developers of Aldol blamed poor lighting and calibration issues for the collapse, saying the robot's stereo cameras are sensitive to light and the hall was dark.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Russia's AI Robot Falls Seconds After Being Unveiled More

Russia's AI Robot Falls Seconds After Being Unveiled

Comments Filter:

  • So, Adol got an F in its report card (Score:4, Funny)

    by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2025 @10:07PM (#65792078)

    Because it fell to the floor a short while after being unveiled, so, if the teacher in the "humanoid robot classroom" were reading the grades outloud would say: "Adol, F"

  • in soviet russia we fail you!

    • Russia isn't Soviet anymore.

      Has not been in a long time.

      • Re:in soviet russia we fail you! (Score:5, Informative)

        by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Thursday November 13, 2025 @01:15AM (#65792342)

        How is Russia not Soviet?

        A 7-million strong army of police to keep the populace quiet? Check.
        Mass nationalization of private property? Check.
        A one-party system? Check.
        Fake elections? Check.
        An all-powerful president self-appointed for life? Check.
        The same specimen is propped by rubber-stamping parliament? Check.
        Servile courts who side with the prosecutor in 98.9% of the cases? Check.
        Gulags for the political opponents and murder when that doesn't work? Check.
        Forced "treatment" at mental institutions for the dissidents, Brezhnev style? Check.
        Occupation by force of neighboring countries? Check.
        Continuous claims that "Liberal West" is a "threat"? Check.

        I could go on, but Russia today is basically a caricature the Soviet Union of old, but weaker and more corrupt.

        • Methinks you confuse "socialist" with "soviet". Russia is not lead by a council (soviet), but by a dictator.

        • Re:in soviet russia we fail you! (Score:4, Insightful)

          by chefren ( 17219 ) on Thursday November 13, 2025 @04:40AM (#65792584)

          Mass nationalization of private property? Check.

          This just has not happened, instead we have fascist style hostile takeovers of businesses by oligarchs and other people from Putin's inner circle. Private businesses are still allowed to exist and operate as long as they toe the party line. This is much more similar to Nazi Germany or fascist Italy.

          Nationalisation of some strategic industry during wartime is not uncommon, see the Selective Service Act of 1940 in the US, with which certain factories and shipyards were nationalised to ensure production capacity for ships and weapons needed for the war.

          An all-powerful president self-appointed for life? Check.

          It's not a Check because in the USSR the general secretary was appointed by the party, not self-appointed, and could also be ousted by the party (see Khrushchev). The USSR looked a lot like China still does today in this regard. In Russia, the party is subservient to Putin, not the other way around.

          • This just has not happened,

            Indeed, it has not. On your planet. In Russia, it is the norm now.

            https://www.themoscowtimes.com... [themoscowtimes.com]

            I believe there is no reason to comment any further on the rest of your bullshit.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by chefren ( 17219 )

              It's easy to conclude from your own source that this is not the same as the USSR nationalising private businesses and farms - not just some of them but all of them, in order to implement state socialism. Points from the article that indicate that they are not implementing state socialism like the USSR. The current Putin regime is fascist, not socialist.

              NSP documented 102 cases of asset seizure from private owners since the invasion in February 2022, spanning a broad range of industries but are concentrated in strategic sectors seen as vital to sustaining Russia’s war effort.

              Strategic industries. Check.

              Reselling these nationalized businesses both brings in revenue and “reshapes the business elite so their fate is tied to the regime’s survival."

              Reselling instead of keeping these as state-owned. Check.

              Replacing private owners with managerial experience “with those who owe their success to the state will inevitably reduce overall economic efficiency,” Yakovlev said.

              Putting them under management of more loyal owners. Check.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by labnet ( 457441 )

            It’s a circle.Communism and Fascism tend to be meet at the extremes. A ruling elite over powerless subjects.

      • you can name it what you like, but the soviet attitude is still there

      • Yeah but people aren't going to stop saying in soviet russia Y Xs you. It's just too good a line.
      • Obligatory "Ackshually" moment.

    • Da tovarische.

  • Developers of Aldol blamed poor lighting and calibration issues for the collapse, saying the robot's stereo cameras are sensitive to light and the hall was dark.

    Wouldn't sensitive cameras be what you want in the case of navigating an environment in low lighting?
    Also, have they heard of LiDAR?

  • YT Link (Score:3)

    by Kunedog ( 1033226 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2025 @10:16PM (#65792096)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • Testing? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by dwater ( 72834 )

    I'd've thought they would test it in the exact conditions it would be demonstrated in...before exposing it to the potential ridicule of the rabid western press, who look to criticise at any small thing...especially if it is anti-russia.

    • What if it got stage fright?

      • That's what the engineers meant, when they said, "the cameras are very sensitive". They really meant, "Aldol is very sensitive."

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Naa, that would have been competent. AI people do not do competent. The ones that did renamed their occupation to other things, like cognitive systems, automated reasoning, robotics, etc. The ones that still claim to be doing "AI" are the hacks that are in it for the money.

      • What iif you can communicate with all those systems naturally in English? Does it threaten your arcane knowledge of whatever idiosyncratic syntax some smart-ass developer came up with on the fly?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          You are clearly an idiot with a gigantic ego. These terms are decades old established disciplines. If you had any actual on-target understanding, you would know that. Do not expect everybody to think as sloppily as you.

          "Communicating with a system in natural language" is a sub-discipline of "NLP". Incidentally, LLMs cannot really do that. They need an NLP layer for that to work. Raw LLM output is not something you want to use.

          • You are clearly an idiot with a gigantic ego. These terms are decades old established disciplines. If you had any actual on-target understanding, you would know that. Do not expect everybody to think as sloppily as you.

            "Communicating with a system in natural language" is a sub-discipline of "NLP". Incidentally, LLMs cannot really do that. They need an NLP layer for that to work. Raw LLM output is not something you want to use.

            There is no "NLP layer".

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by gweihir ( 88907 )

              There are actually several, including language translation layers in some models.

              • There are actually several, including language translation layers in some models.

                You are misinformed. There is ZERO NLP processing in LLMs. The only "translation" is a simple lookup table that translates integer tokens to word fragments.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by narcc ( 412956 )

              While there is no "NLP layer", and LLMs do fall under that category, he's not exactly wrong here. A surprising amount of tinkering with the input and output outside of the model goes into making them seem less silly. As for "communicating with a system in natural language", having pretend conversations isn't quite the same thing, is it? If your goal is to translate messy NL input into precise commands, LLMs can only really fake it. Sure, it's good enough for things like function calling, as long as the

    • Sounds easy, but Musk [youtube.com] has been there, Jobs [youtube.com] has been there, Gates [youtu.be] has been there...

    • I'd've thought they would test it in the exact conditions it would be demonstrated in...before exposing it to the potential ridicule of the rabid western press, who look to criticise at any small thing...especially if it is anti-russia.

      I'd have thought they would just put a man in a robot costume up on stage like Elon Musk.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It looks a lot like Elon Musk's Optimus. Same limitations like not being able to be unbalanced at any time, resulting in that squat and awkward "walking".

      You can tell when a robot is shit tier because the good ones use balance as a tool. Humans basically fall when they walk forward, and then catch themselves with a foot out in front. That also helps them stay upright on slippery and uneven surfaces, climb stairs, deal with being bumped into and so on. The crap ones need to be balanced at all times, and fall

    • especially if it is anti-russia.

      So you took a break out from complaining about the allegedly unfair treatment of China to complain about the allegedly unfair treatment of Russia? It seems like you only respect fascism.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        Whatever, it correct anyway. The press tends to be xenophobic. They'll criticize France or Canada just as readily, though less fervently. For some reason they tend to go easy on Mexico.

  • It is nearly as capable as Tim Conway's Oldest Man character on Carol Burnett: Clock Repair [youtu.be]

  • Backstage problems (Score:3)

    by ukoda ( 537183 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2025 @10:33PM (#65792122) Homepage
    Looks to me like it had been drinking vodka backstage.

  • Amateurs (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2025 @10:36PM (#65792124)

    The proper way to do this is 1) fake it and 2) when queried, lie about it. I mean, this has been the traditional approach in all things AI and at least the LLM pushers know how to do it. I would have thought that Russians, off all people, understand this approach in a more general way. Apparently not. Some people will probably get an extensive "vacation" sponsored by the state now.

    • I thought Musk did a similar thing... Fake it, or maybe just had the robot remote controlled. In any case, Musks robots seemed to be a flop too.

      • I thought Musk did a similar thing... Fake it, or maybe just had the robot remote controlled. In any case, Musks robots seemed to be a flop too.

        So fake it until they give you a $1T pay package.

      • Musk is not the only one who faked robots by having people in a room remote controlling them without telling anyone.

        This company [youtube.com] fakes it in the open. They literally tell their customers that there's a guy next door remote controlling the robot slave all day and night.

        Apparently they think it's not at all creepy to have some unseen stranger wander your home remotely, pretending to be a machine servant.

        I guess there's a market for that, right next to the market for parents who don't mind taking their und

    • The proper way to do this is 1) fake it and 2) when queried, lie about it. I mean, this has been the traditional approach in all things AI and at least the LLM pushers know how to do it. I would have thought that Russians, off all people, understand this approach in a more general way. Apparently not. Some people will probably get an extensive "vacation" sponsored by the state now.

      They did fake it. The "robot" was a guy in a robot suit, unfortunately, the guy in the robot suit got completely shitfaced.

    • How do you fake grammatical perfection for every user?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Are you on drugs? The story here is on a robot (!) walking (!) or rather failing at it. Your comment makes zero sense.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by narcc ( 412956 )

        You're deeply confused. The parent is talking about autonomous robots, not generating text. Companies have indeed been "faking it" for years, sometimes with dancers dressed like robots, sometimes with proper robots controlled by a remote operator.

        As "gramatical perfection", you seem to have confused the whole of AI with silly chat bots. Those also "fake it" in countless ways, thought I should probably point out that grammatically correct output is the easy part. Still, Joe Weizenbaum's Eliza proves that

  • Falls down and keeps walking, determined to complete the task. I guess it never falls on its back, so the power switch on the back is always easy to reach.

  • A little tumble like this is not going to stop Aldol. It's designed to be thrown through a window down an eight-story elevator shaft, and land on 6-8 bullets. All to protect a miniature giraffe. Opulence, Aldol has it.

  • Sheesh, talk about a rookie mistake.

    Dress rehearsals are intended to be a run-through under full production, not dev, conditions. You hope and pray you never discover problems during dress rehearsals, but they exist for a reason.

  • How the mighty have fallen.

  • It was trained on Joe Biden's movements (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The studder stepping and fall down are identical.

  • You don't call a Tesla robot an American robot
  • All I can tell from this video is they're trying new things which, in this era of technology, is a good thing. It seems like it's missing what in humans would be called reflexes.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by narcc ( 412956 )

      Legged robots are little more than 'reflexes', continuously responding to various sensors to keep from tipping over. As for "trying new things", keep in mind that you're watching propaganda. Take anything seen or said with a few grains of salt.

  • Why would they be using the theme from Rocky for this?

    It's appropriate in some ways, but it's also an American song.

    Wouldn't you want to use Russian music of some kind for a Russian event intended to show off Russian technology?

  • The worst part is that this was a just a fake robot with a Russian guy inside.

  • The robot had a new undocumented feature...

    "Hit the deck!" for the war with the Ukraine. Even Rocky knew when to take a dive...

    JoshK.

  • We are able to build robots. Real robots. Purpose built able to be ideal for the task robots that are better in every way than humans. Why would we intentionally limit them by forcing a bipedal design combined with shitty AI?

    • We are able to build robots. Real robots. Purpose built able to be ideal for the task robots that are better in every way than humans. Why would we intentionally limit them by forcing a bipedal design combined with shitty AI?

      Trying to avoid the uncanny valley? Which leads naturally to having sex with a robot. So for most people who want to bang a robot, they need to looks like a person.

      A guess anyhow.

      • Pretty good guess. Any cold blooded read of technology shows that human psychology drives design and adoption. I have a saying: if you can't punch it or fuck it, people won't understand it.

        We already have robots with guns for heads, so sex bots can't be far behind.

        • Pretty good guess. Any cold blooded read of technology shows that human psychology drives design and adoption. I have a saying: if you can't punch it or fuck it, people won't understand it. We already have robots with guns for heads, so sex bots can't be far behind.

          And sex sells. VHS and Beta were largely driven by pR0n, And so was the internet. And as physical males and females are entering an era of sexual apartheid, we all still have a sex drive. For women, they are freed from the cause of all their problems. For males, even if they spend 100K for a sex doll, it is a cheap alternative to marriage, raising a child, and the subsequent divorce.

          That sounds a bit doom and gloomist, sometimes the truth do be that way.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      You seem to think all robots are the same. We've got LOTS of different kinds of robots, from robot pencil sharpeners on up. We've got robot forklifts, robot snakes, robot airplanes, etc. Humanoid robots are just another kind, but a kind that's potentially quite useful in environments shaped for humans to operate in.

  • As soon as it started moving, it stopped standing upright and began leaning to the left: It was obvious what would happen.
  • I don't respect any robots that walk like they crapped themselves.

  • And clearly, that robot had been trained on vodka-soaked Russians...

  • Good thing we don't have either of those in the real world.

  • ...Zelinskyy Vodka

  • I feel sorry for the developers. They knew it wasn't ready, but they were told the gulag awaits if they don't demo it, NOW. Then, of course, it did a face plant. Now it's the gulag for sure for them.

    But, they had the last laugh. The face with which they provided the thing looks just like Putin.

Slashdot Top Deals

The trouble with a lot of self-made men is that they worship their creator.

Close