While humanoid robots have a long way to go to prove useful in our day-to-day lives, they’ve at least made leaps and bounds in showing off their agility on stage.
Case in point, the televised Spring Festival Gala put on by the state-run China Media Group over the weekend featured an impressive synchronized martial arts routine. Organizers were even confident enough to put the well-being of children on the line, having young performers spar with a small army of nunchuck- and spear-wielding Unitree G1 robots.
At one point, several of the robots can be seen performing a wall flip, an impressive feat that involves them literally running up a temporary wall on stage. (You can check it out for yourself at the 3:16 mark in the video embedded below.)
It’s a dazzling performance, showcasing how far the country’s robotics industry has come in a few short years, a massive surge in interest that has even led to the country’s regulators warning of an impending bubble as an influx of robotics companies risks crowding one another out.
Users on social media immediately noticed an enormous technological leap, comparing this year’s performance to a far less impressive appearance a mere year ago, which saw less sophisticated humanoid robots awkwardly shuffling on stage while waving red handkerchiefs.
“Humanoids bundle a lot of China’s strengths into one narrative: AI capability, hardware supply chain, and manufacturing ambition,” Beijing-based tech analyst Poe Zhao told Reuters of the performance. “They are also the most ‘legible’ form factor for the public and officials.”
Whether the rest of the world, including Elon Musk’s Tesla, which is developing its own Optimus robot, can keep up with China remains to be seen. For one, Optimus robots still heavily rely on human remote operators.
“By far, the biggest competition for humanoid robots will be from China,” Musk told investors during an earnings call earlier this year. “China is good at manufacturing, and also in AI, judging from open models.”
“To the best of my knowledge, we don’t see significant competition outside of China,” he added. “People outside of China underestimate China, but China’s an ass-kicker next-level.”
However, whether all of that martial arts expertise can be translated into actually-useful skills — arming robots with nunchucks isn’t exactly going to give China an edge on the battlefield, the workforce, or domestic labor — is still a wide-open question. Robotics companies are struggling to get their humanoid robots to adjust to the messy reality of daily life on the fly, and are only starting to make some progress.
In other words, while having robots sparring with children live on stage as part of a well-rehearsed choreography is unquestionably impressive, reliably doing chores around the house could prove far more difficult in the long run — even for China.
“Cool,” one Reddit user commented on the latest martial arts performance. “Can I please get one that just cleans my house and does the laundry?”
More on robots: New Helix Video Shows Robot Loading and Unloading Dishwasher Pretty Damn Well
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