Submitted 3 days ago by Tea@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world
https://lite.cnn.com/2025/04/19/asia/china-first-humanoid-robot-half-marathon-intl-hnk/index.html
If the idea of robots taking on humans in a road race conjures dystopian images of android athletic supremacy, then fear not, for now at least.
The first robot across the finish line, Tiangong Ultra – created by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center – finished the route in two hours and 40 minutes.
The winner of the men’s race on Saturday finished in 1 hour and 2 minutes.
What a misleading headline. This was a 13 mile race. The robots lost by about 8 miles.
That Boston Dynamics robot used to get knocked over every time they hit it with a broom. Used to. I for I’ve welcome our merciful and generous machine overlords.
Strange competition as well. Let’s see a person outrun a car for 13 miles. There already Jaguars driving hundreds of thousands of miles more carefully than humans are. Why are we forcing them to be bipedal? Person in race vs a smart missile. Missile makes it to another continent before the person makes anywhere near that. Drones are flying around without need of human guidance. Computers are faster at just about everything and always will be. There’s a reason we make phone calls or emails instead of sending a letter.
I heard they’re pretty great, building bike lanes and such
USA is trying to keep China from competing on AI, preventing them access to the same chips the west have.
But I don’t think it’s working, China simply has a way to massive well educated talent mass, and they are investing heavily too.
I think USA would be better off allowing Nvidia to compete equally, taking away 25+% of their market isn’t helping USA/Nvidia, it’s only helping the Chinese newcomers getting customers that would otherwise use Nvidia.
Robots kind of suck compared to humans in terms of energy efficiency, sure a factory robot arm can crush you but if it had to run on the electricity equivelent of a bowl of bran flakes you could overpower it with one hand and not much effort. (barring an insane gear ratio which would make the thing incredibly slow)
Thank goodness John Henry has taught us Americans that machines will never beat humans, so we obviously know how this will end. /s
this means they can catch the average person
That’s still faster than me though…
Do these people miss slavery so much they have to build humanoid robots so they can own them?
That is a weird take.
The robots are human shaped because the human shape is a good shape to be to interact with our environment. And environment that by definition has been designed to interact with human shapes.
I agree, it’s a bit of a weird take especially when we’re talking about robots in a marathon, not in a textile factory or flipping McBurgers.
I guess I was thinking: why give up the efficiency of wheels/tracks/propellers for walking (a less simple movement) and why only one set of arms? Why would you want a robot to look human at the cost of being as multitasking and movement challenged as it’s owner? I kept imagining Angry Bender from Futurama where he has 3 very maneuverable metal tentacle arms on each side. (Though normally he’s pretty humanoid in shape too). I still think we’re overly anthropomorphizing them and it’s a bit creepy. It seems like we’re building the tech based on Hollywood as much as anything else. I hear you when you say the shape is a good “fit” for our built environment, but I think we can do even better so it’s interesting that we decided our bodies were the pinnacle of biology and technology.
“Humanity could not stomach slavery for things they could not grow or make.”
the word “robot” originates from the Czech word “robota,” which means forced labor or serfdom.
I just hope they dont give these thing sentence. Can’t have 200 iq immortal kill bots angry that their biological owners inflicted pain on them for every small infraction.
I think a robot with sentences is just ChatGPT.
Won’t someone think of the lithium!
Yeah, lets try again in about 5 years.
singletona@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I’m amazed they made it the whole way. Still impressive.
lemmie689@lemmy.sdf.org 3 days ago
Some didn’t make it. Like the Pony Express, they swapped horses.
embed_me@programming.dev 1 day ago
Just wait until they make androids that can repair other androids