Famously unfazed Latest Yorkers were rattled by this robot.
The humanoid stunned passersby because it strutted through Midtown — grabbing hot dogs, trying on sneakers and racking up viral attention in a wild promo stunt.
The KOID-branded bot, priced around $100,000, was rolled out last week by global asset management firm KraneShares to advertise its Global Humanoid and Embodied Intelligence Index ETF, which launched in June after the bot rang the Nasdaq opening bell.
“I feel like I used to be witnessing firsthand . . . the primary lightbulb or the primary automobile,” said Joseph Dube, head of selling at KraneShares. “People were amazed. Some people were terrified. It was a significant mixed bag of reactions.”
Throughout the stunt, the bot marched down Fifth Avenue, posed for selfies and casually walked right into a Hoka store — where stunned employees helped it try on sneakers.
The entire scene was orchestrated by content creator Ben Sweeny, who filmed for the @NewYorkers social media account while interviewing passersby. The clips exploded online, some racking up greater than 100,000 likes.
“To mess with humanity . . . y’all gotta stop. Devil, I rebuke you to hell,” one man on the road shouted.
“How much am I getting paid, and the way much is the robot getting paid?” one other asked.
“It’s going to occur,” a lady said when asked a few potential robot takeover.
Others were more optimistic.
One blind man called the tech “wonderful,” noting it could help individuals who can’t have guide dogs as a consequence of allergies or other limitations.
“I mean, I might love for it to scrub my house,” one other passerby said.
Built by Chinese robotics firm Unitree and supplied by Long Island-based RoboStore, KOID runs on Stanford’s OpenMind software.
It was remote-controlled through the walk but is fully programmable and already utilized in research labs and universities, Dube said.
Since launch, KraneShares says the ETF has drawn in $28 million.
“In some unspecified time in the future these robots might be so common that it’s not going to have the wow factor that it currently has,” Dube said. “We’re definitely profiting from a moment in time.”
The Morgan Stanley Global Humanoid Model projects that there might be 1 billion humanoids and $5 trillion in annual revenue by 2050.
