The five-day World Humanoid Robot Games, which ended in Beijing this week, highlighted both the robots’ advancing capabilities and their technical vulnerabilities. During the competitions, a robot manufactured by Honor lost its leg during a sprint, some robots toppled over in showers of sparks, and one caught fire after crashing into a collision mat. In weightlifting, a robot lost its balance and toppled onto the judges’ table, while robot cheerleaders and other competitors also frequently fell during various demonstrations.
Much larger than last year’s inaugural event, the games featured sprinting, football, boxing and weightlifting, as well as tasks such as making beds, delivering packages, arranging shelves, folding clothes, hammering nails and extinguishing fires. The purpose of these events was presented as taking robots out of laboratories and preparing them for the conditions they will encounter in real-world environments such as factories and homes. While robots were required to operate fully autonomously in some disciplines, human assistance through teleoperation was allowed in some competitions, with points deducted as a result.
Technological progress was also evident in record-breaking results. One humanoid robot ran 100 metres in 9.39 seconds, surpassing Usain Bolt’s 2009 world record. Another robot reached 2.88 metres in the standing high jump, exceeding by nearly half a metre the human record that had stood since 1993. Last year’s winner recorded a time of 21.50 seconds in the 100-metre event, while the highest standing high jump was 0.95 metres. Nevertheless, performance in more ordinary tasks showed that there is still a considerable distance to go before robots can work reliably on their own.
China dominated the medal table, led by AgiBot and Tien Kung. 641 of the 666 teams came from China; these teams represented 157 companies and 200 universities. Major US humanoid robot companies such as Tesla, Boston Dynamics and Figure did not take part in the competitions. China was said to have overtaken the US in manufacturing, hardware and the use of robots, while the US was reported to retain its lead in advanced chips and frontier artificial intelligence.
Beijing has not yet confirmed the third games; however, another humanoid robot half marathon is planned for April, along with the first hotel to be operated by robots next year.
Why it matters
The main picture emerging is that robots’ ability to surpass human records in certain physical measurements does not mean they can work reliably on everyday and functional tasks. The inclusion of tasks intended for factory and home environments in the competition indicates that the evaluation criteria are expanding from showcase performance toward consistency, balance and error management; however, the events that allow teleoperation leave open the question of the extent to which some results reflect the robots’ own capabilities. The prominence of Chinese teams and institutions shows that the event also serves to showcase the country’s manufacturing and application capabilities, while the absence of major US companies narrows the scope of the comparison. The key issue is whether robots can continue performing tasks safely without human intervention in situations such as falls, collisions and malfunctions.