Saudi robotics company QSS unveiled 'Muhammad the Humanoid Robot' last week, but video appears to show it inappropriately touching a female reporter.
  • pixxelkick@lemmy.worldEnglish
    128·
    10 months ago

    Must be a slow news day.

    The robot is just moving around, AI isn’t remotely close to at the point where a physical robot can “grope” a person intentionally.

    The fact the video is so short says a lot. I’d expect anyone who watched would just see that the robot moves around all the time, and the reporter wasn’t supposed to stand so close to it.

    This isn’t news.

    Honestly kinda edges onto racism territory. “Hurr hirr, Saudi robot, groped woman, it’s cuz it was made in Saudi”

    Ew.

    • state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      50·
      10 months ago

      It’s not exactly newsworthy, but that a Saudi robot, from a country known for its bad treatment of women, touches a woman inappropriately, even if just by accident, reads like satire.

      • pixxelkick@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        10 months ago

        a country known for its bad treatment of women

        Making assumptions about someone/something based off its country of origin sounds pretty xenophobic to me.

        The robot didn’t “grope” a woman, it moved its hand as an animitronic, and she was clearly standing right next to it during its animations.

        The fact that was blatantly blown into “groping” abd the fact the article felt the need to repeat that it happened in Saudi repeatedly, over and over, should trip the xenophobia alarm.

        Consider if it was an article about how an animitronic robot that moved and knocked a man’s wallet out of his hand because he walked to close past it. I.agine if articles turned that into “Jewish made robot tries to steal man’s wallet!” Unironically.

        You’d probably look at that and go “yeah okay, that’s pretty fucked up, whyd the do that?” Right?

        • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          18·
          10 months ago

          Maybe you should read about the history of Saudi Arabia’s position on gender equality.

          Also…

          Consider if it was an article about how an animitronic robot that moved and knocked a man’s wallet out of his hand because he walked to close past it. I.agine if articles turned that into “Jewish made robot tries to steal man’s wallet!” Unironically.

          What kind of analogy is this? All you’re doing is unsolicitedly spreading Jewish stereotypes.

          • pixxelkick@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            10 months ago

            I’m very well aware. It’s still fuckin racist and xenophobic to conflate a person standing too close to an animitronic with women being sexually assaulted.

            The article is gross, and a lot of people “just joking” in the comments here are gross.

        • state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
          10·
          10 months ago

          You are trying very hard to find things to be outraged over.

          The robot was unveiled in Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia has a well-documented history of treating women very poorly. I hope that’s not something you’d dispute. Of course the robot is an automaton without any agency, but the combination of the sad history of Saudi Arabia’s treatment of women combined with the fact that the robot was made up to look like a Saudi male and the touching of a women in an inappropriate manner was what made this humorous. “Even their robots mistreat women!” would be the gist of it. When the bad behavior comes from the very top and is so enshrined in the culture, as is the case in Saudi Arabia, then you don’t have to mention the fact that not all Saudi men are this bad every time there’s a conversation about it. Especially not when we’re talking about a joke/satire. Because then we’re just highlighting a single aspect and are not having a nuanced conversation.

          • pixxelkick@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            10 months ago

            “Even their robots mistreat women!”

            Who is “they”?

            What if you found out women in Saudi contributed to the creation of this robot?

            What if the robot wasn’t even made by people from Saudi?

            The fact you wrote “their”, summarizing an entire nation of people as being the same, is where the Xenophobia/racism kicks in.

            “It’s just a joke bruh” is basically your defence.

            I don’t get it, it’s not funny.

  • Mr_Blott@lemmy.worldEnglish
    74·
    10 months ago

    Being Business Insider, and the fact it said “appeared to” I was sceptical

    Watched the video in the article and ha ha ha aye he’s an Uncle Gropey 😂

    Fuckin hell you couldn’t make it up

  • carl_dungeon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    54·
    10 months ago

    The robotics firm said staff had “proactively informed all attendees, including reporters, to maintain a safe distance from the robot during its demonstration.”

    Because they knew the robot is a serial rapist

      • Audrey0nne@leminal.spaceEnglish
        18·
        10 months ago

        What a future to live in. Don’t suppose people could get a living wage? Right on, just make pervy AI powered robots instead that’ll fix the problems.

  • janNatan@lemmy.mlEnglish
    41·
    10 months ago

    This is not news. The robot lifted it’s hand and she was standing too close to the display. It barely qualifies as a robot anyway. It’s not like it looked down and analyzed her butt. It’s not that complicated.

    • Zipitydew@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      19·
      10 months ago

      Sure seems that way. I don’t personally do controls engineering. But I know enough I wouldn’t doubt that’s just pre-programmed motion to attempt it looking “alive”.

      So 1) Seems much more like animatronics. 2) It certainly doesn’t have advanced enough proximity detection AI would need.

      The creators even claim they told people to stay back. That’s not advanced at all. Even simple production line bots have collision detection.

    • Icalasari@kbin.social
      4·
      10 months ago

      Thanks for saving me a read. I was expecting some basic object identification and retrieval AI getting confused by a pattern and groping to grab the “object”

  • Seraph@kbin.social
    6·
    10 months ago

    These things are getting so life like!

    Not in appearance yet, but you gotta admit the robot understood the assignment.