China Pits Humanoid Robots Against Humans In Half-Marathon (msn.com) 25
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Twenty-one humanoid robots joined thousands of runners at the Yizhuang half-marathon in Beijing on Saturday, the first time these machines have raced alongside humans over a 21-km (13-mile) course. The robots from Chinese manufacturers such as DroidVP and Noetix Robotics came in all shapes and sizes, some shorter than 120 cm (3.9 ft), others as tall as 1.8 m (5.9 ft). One company boasted that its robot looked almost human, with feminine features and the ability to wink and smile.
Some firms tested their robots for weeks before the race. Beijing officials have described the event as more akin to a race car competition, given the need for engineering and navigation teams. "The robots are running very well, very stable ... I feel I'm witnessing the evolution of robots and AI," said spectator He Sishu, who works in artificial intelligence. The robots were accompanied by human trainers, some of whom had to physically support the machines during the race.
A few of the robots wore running shoes, with one donning boxing gloves and another wearing a red headband with the words "Bound to Win" in Chinese. The winning robot was Tiangong Ultra, from the Beijing Innovation Center of Human Robotics, with a time of 2 hours and 40 minutes. The men's winner of the race had a time of 1 hour and 2 minutes. [...] Some robots, like Tiangong Ultra, completed the race, while others struggled from the beginning. One robot fell at the starting line and lay flat for a few minutes before getting up and taking off. One crashed into a railing after running a few metres, causing its human operator to fall over. You can watch a recording of the race in its entirety on YouTube.
Some firms tested their robots for weeks before the race. Beijing officials have described the event as more akin to a race car competition, given the need for engineering and navigation teams. "The robots are running very well, very stable ... I feel I'm witnessing the evolution of robots and AI," said spectator He Sishu, who works in artificial intelligence. The robots were accompanied by human trainers, some of whom had to physically support the machines during the race.
A few of the robots wore running shoes, with one donning boxing gloves and another wearing a red headband with the words "Bound to Win" in Chinese. The winning robot was Tiangong Ultra, from the Beijing Innovation Center of Human Robotics, with a time of 2 hours and 40 minutes. The men's winner of the race had a time of 1 hour and 2 minutes. [...] Some robots, like Tiangong Ultra, completed the race, while others struggled from the beginning. One robot fell at the starting line and lay flat for a few minutes before getting up and taking off. One crashed into a railing after running a few metres, causing its human operator to fall over. You can watch a recording of the race in its entirety on YouTube.
Cars Vs Horses (Score:2)
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Horses might win today but they'll lose tomorrow...just a matter of time.
The horse listening to the EV owner STILL bragging about how much “horsepower” is under the hood, is laughing their fucking ass off.
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The horse listening to the EV owner STILL bragging about how much “horsepower” is under the hood, is laughing their fucking ass off.
Horses have an odd sense of humor.
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At least in Europe most EVs seem to state their power in kilowatts these days.
It's a little confusing because you often see cars advertised as "80kW" and never know if it means an 80kW peak motor or someone meant to say "80kWh" for the size of the battery.
Re: Cars Vs Horses (Score:2)
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You know the whole world will use kW for power, while the US will stay with "horses" because ... they've always done like this.
Oh Thine Hypocrite and Master of All Things Stuck in Ways..might we stop pretending for a moment that the 2025 gas-gurgling models sold the world over don’t all still come with horses marketed under ye olde bonnet.
A century later.
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On the other hand everyone grows up with cups and spoons but not so much a cubic centimeter. The 2 Litre soda bottle has existed seemingly forever though, even in the US, so I can visualize 2 litres, just not 1
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The UK is, as usual, split between both. We are the same with metric and imperial measures and weights.
Love/hate it (Score:4, Interesting)
The engineering challenge is fascinating, but if the robots aren't completely self-navigating and self-righting, if they get battery changes they're not performing themselves... they don't count. They're not actually doing a half marathon.
I wouldn't mind a Robot Olympics where we have distance, speed, and terrain challenges, even if appropriate challenges would currently be ridiculously easy for humans, but the robots have to do it all themselves from start to finish.
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The engineering challenge is fascinating, but if the robots aren't completely self-navigating and self-righting, if they get battery changes they're not performing themselves... they don't count. They're not actually doing a half marathon.
I wouldn't mind a Robot Olympics where we have distance, speed, and terrain challenges, even if appropriate challenges would currently be ridiculously easy for humans, but the robots have to do it all themselves from start to finish.
Eh, I don't care about the battery changes, or even the self-navigation (not sure about self-righting). It's more the robot's durability and reliability. 21.1km is a long distance, if you haven't mastered the task of walking you aren't going to make it.
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I'm keeping an eye on this. I'm pretty sure I can outrun the shiny black Murderbot looking one, but I'm not sure I have greater endurance than its battery.
There's a nightmare for you. It may be slow but it's relentless. A bit like the T-800, it doesn't run, it just keeps coming.
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Re: Love/hate it (Score:2)
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I'd love to see an Olympics version with robots in sports and ceremonies!
Power walking (Score:3)
Sounds very petty but it's a big leap in robot capabilities.
Re: Power walking (Score:2)
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ASIMO a fully autonomous robot could run ... in 2000, and it was retired in 2022 as old technology
Pit-ty (Score:2)
Pit-ty the fool who approved this article without a basic grammar check.
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That often happens when transcribing (or however they do it) from the original article to the Slashdot summary, just assume the original article was "clean" until you can prove otherwise. Since msn.com rejects my browser, I can't check directly.
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It's an obvious typo. Shows that editors just copy-paste content without doing their job, without reading what they are about to post at least once.
Keep trans out of sport! (Score:3)
Transistors that is.
Robots or remote control toybots? (Score:1)
\o/ (Score:1)
I wonder if this will gradually evolve into a robot-chases-human event :-)