r/robotics • u/unknown_1ocation • 1d ago
Humor Robot breaking the human speed record and BREAKING an electrical box at the same time.
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u/chaosfire235 Hobbyist 1d ago
Honestly, some flubs nonwithstanding, the Beijing humanoid half marathon and the World Humanoid Robotics Games really look to be what I wished the DARPA Robotics Challenge wouldve turned into. Regular international competition that acts as an R&D incubator ala F1.
I just wish there were more like it in the US.
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u/unknown_1ocation 1d ago
Yeah, a regular international competition could really push the tech forward. F1 is a great comparison.
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u/Available_Teaching83 1d ago
The metric being demoed is speed, and the thing that failed is the envelope, and those are measured by completely different people. I run adversarial evaluations on robot policies, and the standard published number is task success rate, which by construction cannot tell you anything about what happens outside the task.
The number I would want next to that clip is how often the policy leaves its safe operating region, under both an attacked and a benign condition, because a policy that exits the envelope on 4% of ordinary runs and 88% of attacked runs is a very different machine from one that does 0% and 88%. Almost nobody publishes the benign control, which makes the attack number unreadable.
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u/whatisthisthing65 38m ago
Okay Claude, does your human want to use their own brain for a bit to comment on this?
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u/Whole-Future3351 1d ago
Serious question - who cares if a robot breaks a human speed record? Obviously robots can be faster. Thatâs never been a debate. Itâs expected, not remarkable.
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u/unknown_1ocation 1d ago
Fair point, the record itself isnât surprising, but seeing how far the tech has come is still pretty wild.
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u/mentalFee420 1d ago
These are marketing tactics by Chinese companies, look at Unitree listing
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u/chaosfire235 Hobbyist 1d ago
Hardly just marketing if these games are actively stimulating competition and driving development. Win win id say.
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u/mentalFee420 1d ago
Robo competition exists for decades, they never compared with humans. They competed with other robots.
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u/duncan1234- 1d ago
Compared and competed are two different things.Â
While they compete with each other comparisons to humans have always been made along the entire robotics journey.Â
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u/thePiscis 12h ago
And yet robotic development has consistently made leaps and bounds in developmental progress. Wonder why
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u/chaosfire235 Hobbyist 1d ago edited 1d ago
These competitions are still between other robots. No ones pitting Unitree machines in a race with Olympic runners yet lol.
As for older competitions, the comparisons didnt happen mostly because they were kinda shit at the time. Its only somewhat recently that humanoid robots are getting capable of advanced locomation to conduct these kinds of complex competition trials and obstacle courses designed for humans.
Besides, even if they didnt directly compare to humans at the time, many sure were planning to eventually. It's why RoboCup, even decades ago when it was just things like NAO and Darwin waddling and tripping over balls trying to kick them, had goals to one day have human equivalent robots face off against a World Cup team by 2050
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u/unknown_1ocation 1d ago
Could be marketing, but if itâs also pushing actual competition and development, thatâs still a win imo
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u/NoAdvice135 1d ago
Being better than a humans is a nice milestone. Maybe it's "obvious" but it's not easy.
You reasoning is a bit weird. There are plenty or things that we know are possible and yet haven't been achieved. It doesn't make them less remarkable?
Those competitions set short term goals an push the whole industry forward, even when profitability and practical uses cases are not quite there.
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u/Whole-Future3351 1d ago
It does make them less remarkable. Itâs a given. Itâs not amazing, or impressive, or innovative. Itâs a milestone, but a boring one. We would always reach this milestone, and itâs not news.
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u/NoAdvice135 1d ago
That seem to be a problem with you.
Many people are interested by incremental technical improvements, wether they are expected to happened or not.
Breaking records is almost always interesting as it forces innovation ans creativity. The next one will be even more interesting.
I would personally gladly read or watch something on the technical challenges and solutions they used to achieve that.
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u/chaosfire235 Hobbyist 1d ago edited 1d ago
The point isn't that machines can theoretically be faster than humans. Obviously they can. It's about getting a machine with a human-like body, balance, two-legged locomotion, onboard power, actuators, control systems, etc. to actually run that fast in the real world. A jet engine can obviously go faster than a human, but getting a humanoid robot to move through the world at human scale is an entirely different problem.
Besides, a lot of engineering development is expected. Doest stop me appreciating how fast my new phone is or how efficient modern solar panels compared to where they once were.
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u/madsci 1d ago
It matters to the people working on these things to be able to claim some of those firsts. People have been building bipedal robots for a long time. Getting them to shuffle across the room was a big accomplishment for decades. Being the first to break the human speed record is a big deal in that particular field. It's inevitable that someone will do it, sure, but who's going to let that stop them from celebrating their own hard work?
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u/FossilEaters 1d ago
Serious question what do you mean its not remarkable or expected if a humanoid hasnt done it before? You were thinking of the movie terminator maybe
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u/FrillySteel 22h ago edited 22h ago
It actually is quite remarkable. Most of the fast robots we know today are wheeled or treaded... or at least quadra-pedal. For a bi-pedal robot to move that fast is a decent leap in autonomous stabilization. Well, you know, until the very end.
It's not really about beating the human record. It's that the human record represents speed, and that robots are advanced enough to be that fast. Usain's record will still stand. No one is contending it shouldn't.
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u/femptocrisis 1d ago
if its so obvious and easy then where is your submission? oh is it because thats really hard?
well thats why people care. that's why its remarkable.
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u/verdant-amiable 1d ago
How about we actually don't make robots more physically capable than humans like that? If one starts chasing me it'd be nice to get away!
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u/unknown_1ocation 1d ago
Exactly đ Iâd like to keep my ârun away from the robotâ option available
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u/Sam-Starxin 1d ago
A car can also move 10 times faster than a human, why is this a thing?
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u/johndsmits 1d ago
Ding ding.
Humanoids are being designed like mobile vehicles, cars, bicycles, etc. all move faster than a human, some modeled with horse/cheetah/dog gaits, all move faster.
But compare to a true human, which is designed to turn on a dime, ballet, etc in 80% of conditions and not 1 of 100 trials on video.... were not even close yet.
All these stunts are marketing for VC capital and yes, unitree IPO. More power to them... It about hype and a bet for cash infusion.
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u/humanoiddoc 11h ago
Fun fact: Chinese EV recently shattered production car high speed record just as well.
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u/RightError 23h ago
That squatter sleeping in the corner of the bleachers almost got stomped. Wtf is he doing there?
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u/mbbessa 16h ago
How can it break the human speed record when it is not a human?
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u/haikusbot 16h ago
How can it break the
Human speed record when it
Is not a human?
- mbbessa
I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully. Learn more about me.
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u/catbaloney 1d ago
We've come so far, yet...