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Title: China Pits Humanoid Robots Against Humans In Half-Marathon

Link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/04/19/...

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.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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