[hervature]

Whoever approved making a robot look like it is about to dance before awkwardly panning to a "static" model should not be making those decisions. It literally killed the vibe in the room. People went from the verge of freaking out to the biggest let down ever that it ruined whatever they said afterwards.

[LarsDu88]

No doubt the original intent was to have the blue robot start breakdancing, but the engineering team probably said it wasn't ready on time

Sometimes, demos are just not ready on time. It's a reality of life. Not every company throws baseballs at their Cybertruck windows onstage.

[hervature]

If that's the case, just scrap the demo. They literally kept the script "let us show you what it looks like".

[Tempest1981]

Or at least have it serve bags of popcorn.

[LarsDu88]

Well they did show us what it looked like. And a physical model is better than a CG render

[pests]

and they did

[BloodyIron]

Disagree, it was a good transition to a second example. It didn't kill it for me at all.

[krisoft]

Disagree, it was a bad move in two different ways. It was anticlimactic emotionaly and it didn’t convey the right message rationaly either.

Anticlimax because the first robot hyped up the entrance of the second robot. It was emotionaly conveying that “hey you think these groovy movements are great? Check out this guy.” But once it become clear that the next guy is just a dumb statue it deflated. How lively the first one was made the second one that much worse in context. A step back.

That is the emotional fail. But perhaps you don’t care about that. Think about what additional message the stage presence of the second robot conveys. The first robot estabilished that they can make a smooth robot. They drove home that the robot is usually autonomous, but in any way it is not pupetted by a guy in a motion tracking suit. The presentation covered how the robots will be used, who will be the first pilot costumer, how will it be introduced and how will it be manufactured. These are all great answers to a concern someone from the audience might have.

But what is the concern to which the second robot is the answer for? Did you doubt even for a second their ability to make the same robot you can already see on the stage but in blue? Because i didn’t. Not before they shown the static demonstration. If they just said “we are working on a production optimised, and streamlined v2” i would have totaly accepted that they can do it.

The only message the second non-working robot communicates is that they are having trouble with their production model. They couldn’t even make it stand in one spot and wave politely! Something is cooked with it and badly. It adds nothing positive to the message of the presentation while introduces the very visible sign that something is wrong.

Now, do I think they won’t be able to solve the problems eventually? Of course not. Heck maybe it will be up and running within days. But why show something which is not working? It is such an unforced error. The first robot could have just done the dance then pointed at the screen and then walked out and nothing would have been less about the whole presentation.

[BloodyIron]

I'm not trying to say you're wrong. I'm trying to say that it did not kill the "vibe" for me, so to say. For all I know they _wanted_ the second one to move, but it wasn't ready in time, and situations like that are completely legitimate. I still am very impressed by what they _did_ demonstrate. Can't win them all!

[thecopy]

Im sorry, but this is just too much. This is an industrial product. Decisions will not be made based on emotions from a demo at CES.

[krisoft]

> Decisions will not be made based on emotions from a demo at CES.

Sure. It is not a mistake with grave consequences. Something can be a mistake and not matter much in the long run. Like the CEO could have went on stage wearing mismatched shoes, or wearing a red clown nose. It wouldn't ruin everything. Wouldn't bankrupt them. If the robots are good they will be still sold. But it would just undermine the message a little bit. For no good reason whatsoever.

The fundamental questions will be: Do the robots work? Are they cheaper than the equivalent labour from humans? (including all costs on both sides of the comparison.) Nothing else matters in the long run. They could have just never went to CES and it would be all the same.

> Im sorry, but this is just too much.

ok :) if you say so. But then tell me. What did the stage presence of the second robot add to the show?

[refulgentis]

This may be a bit overwrought, I’m on my 3rd watch and can’t identify the moment where breakdancing could be expected, my best guess is when it does a tai chi position at 3m20s, which seems unlikely but perhaps on the nose if you’re western, young, not a dancer, and don’t know breakdancing well, i.e. as a series of static positions moved through slowly.

[renewiltord]

What they are stating is:

# Initial robot tai-chis towards the right of the video

# This is a stage act that "cues up" the second robot

# One can expect that this "ta-da" moment will have the presented robot do something

# Instead, the presented robot stands there doing nothing

# We have statues that are hundreds of years old easily accessible. Hence a new statue is not interesting

[alejo]

Maybe folks where still confused by memories of the Australian breakdancer from last summer olympics (?)

[refulgentis]

This was excellent comedy, and I never say that, kudos

[ofrzeta]

Really .. it was a bit anticlimatic. "We've developed the new Atlas. It's so great bla bla. We wanted to show it but now we don't" -- /switches off TV

[rasz]

real kicker was

>"We just couldn't pry the actual production samples out of our engineers hands at the lab this week. "

sounds like "Our CEO ordered samples to be shipped but those pesky engineers just wouldnt do it guys!"

>"Um, so we're going to be showing you videos"

Except they didnt even show videos, just some bad CGI aka "We rented this huge ass auditorium to show you our pet. Golden elephant is currently in our basement, he is tired right now so instead look at all those cool drawings my nephew made"!

[arathis]

What the fuck are you people on about

[krisoft]

The second robot is broken. It is not moving. Why show a broken robot? That is what we are on about.