'High-Tech AI' Robot In Russia Turns Out To Be Human In Costume

A few years back a bizarre incident happened when Russian state television covered a robotics forum. The purpose of this forum was to motivate the young generation to get into robotics. 

However, what really caught the eye of the public at this fancy forum was a freakishly human-like robot called Boris.

Boris was shown on stage with co-hosts using dance moves so realistic that your dad would proudly use them at a wedding. Russia 24 told its viewers that the robot "has already learned to dance and he’s not that bad,” the Guardian reports.

Boris, called "the country's most modern robot" by the channel, also held a conversation with conference hosts, telling the audience "I know mathematics well but I also want to learn to draw".

Later when the robot was interviewed in the studio, everyone was amazed by his astonishingly realistic movements.

However, soon people started to get suspicious when it started to act more and more like humans.

If this robot is what Russia 24 reported, it would be an astonishing advance in robotics and a huge leap into the uncanny valley. It even looks pretty much the exact same shape as a human.

Well, guess what? It turned out that Boris was not really a robot, and essentially this seems like an episode from the Simpsons.

Russian website TJournal investigated, after becoming suspicious of the video. "How did Russian scientists get the finished robot so quickly, without publishing any intermediate results?" they asked, and why is it shaped like it is a robot suit with a man inside it, rather than a hinged machine?

In what can only be a direct homage to the episode where Homer dresses up as a robot to impress Bart by fighting robots on Robot Wars, it turns out the reason Boris looks like he's a human in a robot suit is well because he is a human in a robot suit. 

Photos tweeted from the conference showed very clearly that the robot had a human neck, which isn't anything like the classic "bits of wire and metal" that you'd usually find inside a robot. Even the really advanced ones.

TJournal later revealed that the man inside the robot is actually wearing an Alyosha robot suit which is made by a company called  Show Robots. 

Realistic though they are, they become less so when you remove the robot head.

The forum itself says that they hadn't claimed that Boris was anything other than a man in a very expensive costume, the BBC reports.