Robot Cinema Verité
In Praise of the Flawed Demo Video
Like realtors' photos of beautiful houses on sunny days, a shiny YouTube video of robots working flawlessly should be taken with a grain of salt. The robot working at its best, in ideal circumstances, is really not representative of a typical day.
Of course, robot-makers want to show off their work in its best light, just as you'd want to arrive for a job interviewed washed, rested and focused. It's not deceptive to show your machine at its best, or to demonstrate that your concept actually can work. But we viewers just need to keep in mind that robot reality is different.
You should also take the opposite sort of video with an equal grain of salt. I mean the kind of pratfall and stumble video in which the robot fails completely, like this famous interview with Hanson Robotics Sophia (at the 12 second mark)