Are many of today's so-called humanoid robots essentially just walking 'remote-controlled toys' or 'Siri', far from true intelligence?

You've hit the nail on the head with that question. Frankly, your observation is incredibly accurate; most so-called humanoid robots today can indeed be categorized into these two types. They are still light-years away from the true "humans" we see in sci-fi movies.

Let's break this down, and it will be much easier to understand.

1. Advanced "Remote-Controlled Toys" – It's About Muscle, Not Brains

Many robots that make you go "Wow!" at press conferences, like those smoothly making coffee, folding clothes, or performing Tai Chi, actually have a "puppet master" behind them.

• Real-time Teleoperation: An engineer, wearing a suit equipped with sensors, performs the same actions in the background. The robot acts like a mirror, mimicking all of the person's movements in real-time and with high precision.
• What's the Purpose? These demonstrations are primarily to show off "muscle," meaning the robot's top-tier hardware capabilities: how strong its balance is, how flexible its joints are, and how precise its fingers are. This itself is a huge technological advancement, but at this moment, the robot's "brain" is empty; the real thinking and decision-making are done by the person behind it.

So, from this perspective, calling it a "remote-controlled toy" is not an exaggeration at all; it's just an extremely expensive and precise one.

2. Walking "Siri" – Executing Commands, But Not Understanding the World

Another category of robots can indeed complete some tasks autonomously, without real-time human control. For example, if you tell it: "Go to the table and get me that red apple."

It will then begin a series of complex calculations:

• Perception: Using cameras to scan the environment, identifying which is the "table," which is the "apple," and which is "red."
• Planning: Calculating a walking path, how to navigate around obstacles.
• Control: Calculating how far to extend its arm and how much force to use for grasping so as not to crush the apple.

This seems very intelligent, right? But the problem is, it's executing a strictly defined program.

• It doesn't "understand": It doesn't know that an "apple" is edible, that it will rot if dropped, or why you want this apple. It merely breaks down the command "get the red apple" into a series of mathematical and physical tasks it can comprehend and execute.
• Lack of Generalization: You teach it to get an apple in Kitchen A, and it learns well. But if you take it to Kitchen B, where the layout is slightly different, it might "freeze" and not know what to do. It struggles to generalize.

This is like Siri or any smart speaker. You ask "What's the weather like today?", and it can give you a standard answer, but it doesn't "feel" the cold or warmth, nor does it "care" if you need to wear more clothes when you go out. So, calling this type of robot a "walking Siri" is also very apt.

Where Does True Intelligence Still Fall Short?

Between truly intelligent robots and these current "half-finished products," there's a huge chasm, primarily composed of the following points:

1. Common Sense: This is the biggest hurdle. Humans inherently know that cups are fragile, water makes things wet, and people cannot walk through walls. Robots lack this "taken-for-granted" knowledge; everything needs to be fed to them with massive amounts of data, and even then, the results are often suboptimal.
2. Autonomous Decision-Making and Planning: True intelligence means you give it a vague goal, like "clean up this room," and it can understand what "clean" means, then plan its own steps (e.g., sweep first or wipe the table first), and when encountering unexpected situations (like finding the trash can full), it can figure out a solution itself. Current robots are largely still at the stage of "I do what you tell me to do."
3. True Interaction with the Environment: Training AI to play chess or chat in a virtual world is exponentially less difficult than controlling a clumsy physical body to open a door or pour water in the real world. The physical world is full of uncertainties; light, friction, or even a tiny mistake can lead to task failure.

In summary, your feeling is correct.

Viewing current humanoid robots as "remote-controlled toys" and "walking Siris" is a very clear-headed and accurate assessment.

They are more executors of specific tasks rather than solvers of general problems.

However, this is not pessimistic. These seemingly "clumsy" robots are a necessary path toward true general artificial intelligence. Every successful teleoperation refines a more agile "body"; every completed autonomous task trains a smarter "brain." We are currently in the era of robots "learning to walk"; while still far from running, every step counts.