I’ve been covering robots for over 20 years and I can tell you with almost 100% certainty that there is no reason for domestic humanoid robots to have breasts, much less walk down a runway like a runway model.
Things are getting a little weird or weirder than usual in the burgeoning humanoid robot space. First, we had Chinese electric vehicle maker XPeng unveil IRON, a new strangely feminized humanoid robot that looked and moved so convincingly that the company was forced to partially strip the robot and cut away the foamy flesh to reveal the metal and motor beneath.
Look
Days later, Russia finally joined the humanoid robot race with the, in retrospect, ironically named “Idol.” He came out from behind a curtain to the rhythms of the Rocky subject, looking bent over and bewildered before falling. The scene only got worse as handlers dragged the robot’s bewildered body away and stagehands desperately tried to cover the scene with a twisted curtain.
I can’t stop laughing 😆 This is a presentation of Russia’s first AI robot. I think he learned to walk from alcoholics. pic.twitter.com/bd5M58c6rjNovember 11, 2025
In both cases, robotics experts remind us once again of the risks and difficulties of entering the robot race. These companies already face stiff and possibly exciting competition from nearly half a dozen other companies, including Tesla with the latest dancing Optimus (he was last seen making a move with Tesla CEO Elon Musk), 1X Neo Beta, which is promoted in ads outside the New York subway, Unitree’s G1, and Figure AI’s Figure 03.
While none of these robots are home-ready, they mostly avoid the dangers of IRON and XPeng’s Idol.
Sure, Neo Beta now has a nice soft shell, but he’s clearly built like an asexual being and doesn’t move his hips to confuse you. Mostly you plod along trying to slowly help out with the household cleaning chores. Although it is not clear if it can achieve any of them without a teleconnected human operator.
Robots like Optimus and Figure 03 are only now achieving the mobility abilities of the Boston Dynamics Atlas; Now everyone is able to walk around the room while saying hello. Russia’s Idol arrives like a robot built 15 years ago. I haven’t seen such a spectacular and viral robot fail since the Honda Asimo fell down a short flight of stairs in 2007.
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However, humanoid robotics have a great scope, is difficult things. The Russians and the Chinese face two very different problems: underdelivering and overpromising.
In IRON’s case, they’ve built an impressive robot with a “humanoid spine,” flexible “skin,” and homegrown AI, but with no real explanation as to why it looks and walks like a 1980s supermodel. Perhaps inadvertently, it ups the creepy factor with an all-too-human look and feel (blach).
Watching the executives cut up that weird meat foam gave me a very unfortunate and cheesy ’70s sci-fi movie feeling. It was all so unnecessary for a robot that will probably never look like this when it finally arrives a decade from now.
As for Russia’s Idol, I don’t know what to do with that underperforming robot. Perhaps Russia is now so isolated from the Western press that it no longer knows the state of the art of humanoid robots. I’ve never seen a robot look so confused. He even seemed to wonder why he was there.
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