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, let alone walk down the runway like a runway model.
In the growing humanoid robot space, things are getting a little weird, or even weirder than usual. First, we had a Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer. XPeng presents IRONa strange new feminized humanoid robot that looked and moved so convincingly that the company went out of business.forced to partially undress the bot and cut away the foamy flesh to expose the metal and engine underneath.
A few days later, Russia finally joined the humanoid robot race, dubbed, in retrospect, ironically “Idol.” He flew out from behind the curtain to the rhythmic beat of the music. Rocky Thread looking bowed and confused before collapsing. The situation only worsened as cameramen dragged away the robot's confused body and stagehands frantically tried to close the stage with a twisted curtain.
I can’t stop laughing 😆 This is a presentation of Russia’s first robot with artificial intelligence. I think it learned to walk from alcoholics. pic.twitter.com/bd5M58c6rjNovember 11, 2025
In both cases, roboticists again remind us of the risks and difficulties of participating in the robot race. These companies already face stiff and perhaps exciting competition from nearly half a dozen other firms, including Tesla with its latest dancing Optimus (last seen resigning from a deal with Tesla CEO Elon Musk), 1X Neo Beta, which is advertised in advertisements near the New York subway, G1 from UnitreeAnd Figure 03 from figure AI.
While none of these robots are home-ready, they largely avoid the pitfalls of IRON and XPeng's Idol.
Sure, Neo Beta now has a nice soft coating, but he's clearly designed as a sexless creature and doesn't move his hips to confuse you. Mostly he slowly tries to help with cleaning the house. Although it is unclear whether it will be able to perform any of these tasks without a human operator connected to the telephone.
Robots like Optimus and Figure 03 are just now catching up with mobility skills Boston Dynamics Atlas; Now they are all able to walk around the room waving their hand. “Russian Idol” appeared as a bot created 15 years ago. I haven't seen such a spectacular and viral robot failure since Honda. Asimo fell down a short flight of stairs in 2007..
However, humanoid robotics in general is complicated thing. The Russians and the Chinese face two very different problems: under-delivery and over-promising.
In the case of IRON, they created an impressive robot with a “humanoid spine”, flexible “skin” and homemade artificial intelligence, but with no real explanation for why it looks and walks like a supermodel from the 1980s. This, perhaps unintentionally, increases the creepiness factor due to the all-too-human look and feel (paleness).
Watching the executives cut away this weird foam of flesh gave me the very unfortunate feeling of a cheesy 1970s sci-fi movie. It was all so unnecessary for a robot that will probably never look like this if and when it finally arrives in ten years.
As for Russian Idol, I don't know what to do with this ineffective robot. Perhaps Russia is now so cut off from the Western press that it no longer knows the state of the art of humanoid robots. I've never seen such a confused bot. Even it seemed to wonder why it was here.
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