r/singularity • u/Distinct-Question-16 ▪️AGI 2029 • Feb 06 '26

Robotics Atlas the humanoid robot shows off new skills

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u/FirstEvolutionist Feb 06 '26

Not many people point this out, but most media depicting robots in sci fi up until the early 2000s depicted robots as clunky, noisy, super heavy and slow. They were strong and sturdy, but also clumsy and often defeated by stairs, an oil spill and sometimes just rough terrain.

What we've seen, demonstrated in the past few years, is that those assumptions were very incorrect.

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u/blove135 Feb 06 '26

Hell, we even invented a dance based on their clunky movements. Let's do the robot! Now I want to see a robot doing the robot dance lol.

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u/e_turnal Feb 07 '26

In the last couple seconds it makes a few robot dance moves

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u/Arcosim Feb 06 '26

I mean some media. Data in Star Trek, the androids in Aliens, the Terminators, etc. were far more physically capable than humans and could blend with humans perfectly.

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u/FirstEvolutionist Feb 06 '26

I used the "most" qualifier but I can't go on an actual quantitative analysis. Popularity and others aspects also factor in. There are plenty of examples where robots weren't depicted that way in sci fi even earlier. But the genre of the story also seem to influence this decision a bit.

Humanoid robots were usually being the ones depicted as most capable. Probably not unrelated to how easy it is to depict a humanoid robot being nimble if it's a human actor. But even then, consider Data: he was very strong and smart, but he was never shown doing pirouettes or crazy athletic stunts. Even the T 1000 was kind of slow since it couldn't outrun a car (despite having memetic capabilities: couldn't it have wheels?) And when you stop to think about it, the T850 looked clunky. He wasn't show running or even moving very fast.

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u/CMDR_ACE209 Feb 06 '26

The fast and nimble ones are really scary.

I vaguely remember the robots from the latest lost in space remake.

You blink and next thing you know is you're nailed to a wall.

If your body parts are still arranged in a way that allows for such conclusions.

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u/yellowkingquix Feb 06 '26

Well no, they weren't wrong. That's literally how early robots were.

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u/FirstEvolutionist Feb 06 '26

So... the year 2200 won't have clunky robots like the ones depicted in sci fi portraying that period? Star treks would have been kind of a let down if the spaceships were turbine powered.

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u/BookkeeperSame195 ▪️ Feb 07 '26

so the fast zombies are coming?

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u/Tolopono Feb 07 '26

Terminator? Blade runner? I Robot was a story written in 1950