China is expected to deploy swathes of humanoid robots to the busy border frontier that it shares with Vietnam. The robots are set to perform border patrol and inspection duties. This marks a step in the concept of ‘embodied intelligence’ being used in the real world in another effort in public security.
additional source from scmp
Earlier this year, Shenzhen Customs said it integrated leading AI start-up DeepSeek’s large language model into an inspection robot designed to identify and verify cargo information.
Police patrol robots have also been spotted on the streets of Shenzhen, Shanghai and Chengdu. They are frequently showcased in Chinese media as symbols of the nation’s growing embodied intelligence industry and its commitment to advancing “new quality productive forces”.
The humanoid robots thing that various companies (and I guess the CCP now?) are trying to push is so weird to me.
Like if they are doing it so that people feel more comfortable interacting with them, I guarantee they will not feel warm and fuzzy about a humanoid border cop robot. If they are doing it because a humanoid robot is more effective than other forms, there’s no way that’s true given how difficult they are to balance/stabilize/move/etc.
So like… why? Just the cool factor? Seems dumb.
Nah. It’s investor bait
Yeah fair enough. Seems like dumb bait tho