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Twenty-one humanoid robots raced against humans for the first time ever in the Yizhuang half-marathon in Beijing on Saturday. Some of them didn’t fare very well.
The rules for the humanoid robots to gain entry into the race were pretty simple: resemble a human (this rule was enforced very liberally) and be able to walk or run (no wheels allowed). The size of the humanoid robots that competed ranged from 3-feet, 9-inches tall to 5-feet, nine-inches tall, according to Sky News. One even looked almost human.
The top time turned in by the 21 humanoid robots, two hours and 40 minutes, paled in comparison to the winning human’s time of one hour and two minutes. But the creators of the winning robot, Tiangong Ultra, were still very happy.
“I don’t want to boast, but I think no other robotics firms in the West have matched Tiangong’s sporting achievements,” said Tang Jian, chief technology officer for the Beijing Innovation Centre of Human Robotics. He also added that his humanoid robot only had to have its battery changed three times during the 13.1-mile race.
Compared to some of the other robots, like one that fell at the starting line and remained there for several minutes before finally getting back up and running off, Jian’s Tiangong Ultra looked like a champion. Another one crashed into a railing, causing its human escort to also fall down.
This race also was a marked improvement for Tiangong Ultra as the Associated Press reported that it needed eight hours to complete the 13.1-mile course on January 22.
“Some robots may not run elegantly or fall over and that’s normal. We’re still testing various technical approaches,” Jiang Guangzhi, director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology, told the AP.
Thankfully, the robots competing in the half-marathon still all looked very much like robots and not like the synthetic humanlike Protoclone android robot created by Clone Robotics. When those start competing with humans in sporting event, it will be very unsettling.