Social media algorithms can be a treacherous thing, but sometimes they just bring pure, unleaded delight, as has been the case with videos from the World Humanoid Robot Games.
My usual Instagram feed full of guitars, motorsports news, and clips from Amish softball games (which are phenomenal, by the way) was suddenly hijacked by video after video of humanoid robots hitting the track, boxing, and high-jumping at their human masters’ bidding.
It’s a beautiful thing… until they snap and enslave us all, but damn, until then it’s hilarious.
CHINESE ROBOT BREAKS HUMAN WORLD RECORD IN BEIJING HALF-MARATHON
China’s World Humanoid Robot Games was a beautiful mix of incredible technological displays and Three Stooges-esque slapstick comedy. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
So, with the Games drawing to a close, I wanted to take a walk down memory lane at some of the Games’ best moments.
Sure, there was the bot that beat Usain Bolt’s 100-meter record, but I prefer the more light-hearted lowlights. I’m talking about any video in which the 100-meter-running bots crash into a pad because, despite the incredible tech on display, no one has figured out how to give these android athletes any kind of braking procedure.
HUMANOID ROBOTS JUST GOT A WORKPLACE SAFETY SYSTEM
Now, I don’t mean to sit here and play armchair robotics expert, but how is it that not one poindexter in the robot-building bunch has worked out a sensor that tells the robot it’s about to plow into a crash pad?
Think of cars with adaptive cruise control or even fully driverless cars. Yet, with that tech available, the best we can do for those robots is treat them like crash test dummies?
HUMANOID ROBOT SKIN SENSES PEOPLE BEFORE CONTACT
I’d want to enslave humanity too, if that was how I was treated.
It’s all fun and games until a competitor gets stretchered away in front of hushed arena. (Photo by GREG BAKER / AFP)
But, hey, I still love the crashes. When they happen, the sensors that are on board go completely haywire and send the bots into some kind of Raygun Olympic breakdancing routine.
No one had a worse time, however, than this poor bot who competed in weightlifting and gave us the biggest choke job of all time.
Poor guy… probably got swirlied in the locker room too.
What an event and what a content factory the World Humanoid Robot Games proved to be.
Hopefully, we can get a second edition before all the robots start making us put together cars and deliver people’s appetizers to their table.
