Beijing: At the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, the machines proved they are becoming faster, higher, and stronger, even as their practical utility beyond the athletics track remains uncertain.
This is the second time China has hosted the games – an unofficial robot Olympics of its own making – which is designed to showcase its national talent against a backdrop of intensifying geopolitical rivalry in the high-tech sphere.
With the 100 metres sprint final still to go, the hot ticket is Chinese robot Tiangong Ultra. It took down Usain Bolt’s record in the heats on Saturday, clocking a 9.39-second dash and shaving 0.19 seconds off the Jamaican superstar’s time, which remains unbeaten by humans since 2009.
The Tiangong team struck again on Sunday, claiming victory in the 400 metres final for both the small and large humanoid categories, the latter smashing a 2016 Olympic world record in the process.
If the competitors’ blank faces could express human emotion, they would surely depict sheer terror. The robots fanged it around the track with the unhinged gait of someone fleeing an axe murderer – staggering head forward, arms slicing wildly, on the cusp of falling with each step.
Curious spectators have flocked to the National Speed Skating Oval, repurposed from the 2022 Winter Olympics, to watch the spectacle of humanoids competing across events including soccer, martial arts, tennis and athletics. This year’s competition added other scenario-based tests designed to demonstrate dexterity, such as block building, food preparation and storage packing.
Naturally, the games function as a giant marketing campaign for Chinese companies eager to attract the eyes (and wallets) of investors in what is a viciously competitive domestic sector already oversaturated with players. The future is clouded by strategic rivalry after the US banned the import of next-generation Chinese humanoids in a bid to protect its own nascent industry.
The events are less about the robots’ achievements on the day and more about signalling their future capabilities and commercial potential, which remain unclear for now.
“I heard a robot ran faster than Bolt – that blew my mind,” says Li Ran, a 23-year-old university student who was watching the events with a friend.
“If they get even more advanced and something bad happens, humans could be in serious danger.”
For now, experts generally agree that humanoids are a long way from being autonomously deployed to carry out complex tasks in real-world environments.
We can – and maybe, in the name of scientific endeavour alone, we should – applaud man’s ingenuity in developing a lookalike machine that can now outrun man himself.
But when it comes to closing the capability gap between man and robot, perhaps the humanoids’ greatest achievement to date is their ability to reflect a collective exasperation with the human condition, with a distinctly 21st-century panache.
Is there a more apt metaphor for existential futility than a humanoid sprinting at top speed in pursuit of man-made glory, only to fail to brake in time and slam into a safety barrier?
And from there, stumble backwards, plough headfirst into the ground, and break at the waist, sending sparks shooting into the sky?
The Greeks had Sisyphus and his boulder. We have humanoids doomed to careen into walls on command.
In a feat that launched a thousand memes, one robot did exactly this in the training heats before the games kicked off, giving the event’s promoters (the Chinese government) the hype and virality they were looking for.
The competition has been joyously rich with crashes, face-plants, false starts and blowouts, the best ones sending limbs flying and requiring extinguishers for spot fires. Fallen comrades were carted off the tracks on blue stretchers.
All of which makes the robot games a hoot, while injecting a degree of freewheeling chaos into Beijing’s image, otherwise better known for its staid and stage-managed public spectacles.
The concept of “world”, however, functions the same as it does in Major League Baseball’s World Series – a name suggestive of a greater level of international buy-in than it has.
About 95 per cent of the 666 competing teams are Chinese, a share that mirrors China’s dominance in the global humanoid robotics sector.
Despite their speed, the robots still lack the dexterity and finesse of their controllers.
There will be no bidding war for the broadcast rights for humanoid soccer any time soon, unless there is a sudden explosion in demand for painfully slow midfield play, clunky defending, and goals that dribble over the line.
Don’t take it from me. The kids of China’s Generation Alpha, the first digital natives to grow up in robotised megacities, are a little underwhelmed.
“Their reaction ability isn’t strong enough, so they miss chances. In terms of soccer performance, there’s still room for improvement,” says 12-year-old Zha Wenqi, who was watching with his dad.
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Lisa Visentin is the North Asia correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age based in Beijing. She was previously a federal political correspondent based in Canberra.Connect via X or email.
