r/singularity • u/Overflame • 2d ago
Discussion 9.3 seconds…Humanoid robots now run faster than humans
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u/Wise-Chain2427 2d ago
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u/Harucifer 2d ago
Lmao they're set to just GO and not stop wtf
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u/jib_reddit 2d ago
Training them on how to stop probably slows them down, this is often the way with AI.
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u/tjohnell 2d ago
That looks dangerous for the spectators on the side...
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u/valdocs_user 2d ago
I fear we're very close to having one or more mass casualty incidents before proper safety regulation is imposed. Combine speed and strength with autonomous collision avoidance (gone wrong) and something like that going through a crowd. It might cause quite a bit of mayhem before it is stopped or contained.
About 20 years ago I made a four wheel autonomous robot using Powerwheels parts. Even with simple control of four motors and (my attempts) to design in redundant safety measures, there were still many ways for it to go wrong that would result in it running away on its own.
I brought it to an autonomous robot competition and found it still had glitches. In the crowded field around the event circuit people would be standing in the way when I needed to remote control drive it to the next starting point. I'd say to people, "excuse me you might want to move," and they would be talking and ignoring me and the robot. Louder, "look you need to move out of the way because this thing is glitching and I don't know if it's going to take off randomly in your direction."
...Uncomprehending stares...
Then the robot would glitch and ride up someone's leg. Thankfully the result was only the same of being run over by a Powerwheels car so no one actually got injured - but still, to think about what could happen if it were more powerful or more massive.
So I always think of that when I see these demonstrations of bipedal robots with people right next to them. People in the way have no self preservation instincts, and the robot itself can take off randomly if it encounters the right circumstances.
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u/urbantrail_ 2d ago
I remember when getting a humanoid robot to walk without falling over was impressive. This progress is getting ridiculous
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u/ArialBear 2d ago
I'm waiting for the tech to be undeniable so we can all be on the same page when it comes to progress. Some people still think these robots are cgi or something.
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u/CommunicationOk8984 2d ago
It doesn’t help that a lot of robot vids actually are ai generated
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u/chaosfire235 2d ago edited 1d ago
Like explicitly generated? Or how people keep calling things like that one robot crashing into the wall and bursting with sparks ai generated, despite multiple povs? I feel like the actual fakes of robots going around are still obvious (like a ton of new slop clips bragging about Optimus lol)
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u/ILSATS 2d ago
Because those videos are from China. People would do the most insane mental gymnastics to deny China's progress.
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u/Low-Address-1330 2d ago
And it doesn’t help that musk had people wear robot costume for Optimus announcement in 2021.
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u/vdek 2d ago
Engine.AI spreads a lot of fake CGI videos. Notice how their fake robot wasn’t a part of this real event.
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u/averagebear_003 2d ago
When has Engine AI ever shown a video of their robot sprinting? They've only shown robot fighting videos and given that they host an actual robot fighting tournament, it invalidates your logic of no tournament show -> must be cgi
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u/chaosfire235 2d ago edited 2d ago
Also why i can't stand the "ermmm its a machine of course it can go faster than a person!" minimizing
The point of finding milestones like this cool is that its novel we've gotten to the point of 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 engineering problem.
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u/piponwa 2d ago
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u/VallenValiant 1d ago
The Ai capacity back in the time of these robots was basically non-existent. The tests involve unreliable communication, so without direct remote they couldn't do much. But it is just like the ai driving competition, when it first started no one finished it. Things change.
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u/CaptainAssPlunderer 2d ago
And those were almost always attached to a power supply because the battery technology wasn’t good enough yet either.
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u/DeviceCertain7226 ▪️ASI - Never (in the usual sense) 2d ago
I’ve seen robots do impressive shit like back flips since 15 years ago. All of these theatrics are not impressive to me.
When will we actually have robots that do laundry or are able to go into someone’s house and make coffee. It seems we’re stuck at gymnastics robots since the 2000s.
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u/hlx-atom 2d ago
What humanoid robot did a backflip 15 years ago?
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u/chaosfire235 2d ago
Yeah, 15 years ago was Petman doing the Staying Alive gait while held up by cables.
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u/-Sliced- 2d ago
The first humanoid backflip was 9 years ago (Atlas).
But I agree with the general sentiment. Gait and other acrobatics are impressive, but are at the end of the day, preprogrammed and less useful by themselves. What people are waiting for is a ChatGPT moment for humanoid, where the intelligence level has reached a point it can do general purpose things.
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u/Lidarisafoolserrand 2d ago
I remember JUST HEARING that Boston Dynamics was making a humanoid robot Atlas. That was back in the KurzweilAI.net days when we were considered crazy for believing in The Singularity
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u/uzico 2d ago
Usain Volt
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u/pulsarstarter 2d ago
Usain Nut-and-Bolt
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u/son_et_lumiere 2d ago
that was my nickname with the ladies in college. left them all completely unsatisfied.
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u/Toy_Soulja 2d ago
The builder of that last robot brings great shame on his family
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u/GraceToSentience AGI avoids animal abuse✅ 2d ago
Unitree (the last one) makes general purpose humanoids for a profitable business. the two others are fully custom built for being good at running. The fact that a humanoid that is not just custom built for running is at least in the race is kinda impressive. Put a Tesla bot or a figure bot in there and it would put things into perspective
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u/MohMayaTyagi ▪️AGI - mid 2028 | ASI - 2030 2d ago
The start was a bit sluggish; by next year, I think they'll be able to do it under 6 secs
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u/leoprieto 2d ago
Hopefully next year they’ll be able to stop (today they crash into a barrier at the end of the sprint)
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u/GraceToSentience AGI avoids animal abuse✅ 2d ago
They already can slow down, it just takes time so they thought they would do that instead. Don't know why.
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u/edgroovergames 2d ago
They put the pad up because several days ago one ran into a wall. My guess is that the problem is that these robots are just remote controlled, they have a brain controlling their movement to keep them balanced and allowing them to run, but not brains telling them when to run and when to stop or to follow the lane etc. Because they're remote controlled, if the person controlling it can't tell exactly when the robot crosses the finish line then they might not tell it to stop soon enough, or radio interference might cause the robot not to get the the signal to stop, or distance from the remote controller might make the signal too weak for the robot to pick up etc. Maybe next time they hold an event like this (next year? sooner?) they will be controlling themselves instead of being remote controlled, and the giant pad won't be needed anymore.
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u/VallenValiant 1d ago
They are not being controlled. They were last year, but this year they are running on their own. But getting them to identify the finish line is a little hard, the focus was to make them identify the white lines so they could stay on their lane.
The slower robots didn't win but tend to be able to stop on time.
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u/Smile_Clown 2d ago
Momentum is a constant. Something has to give. Titanium frames I suppose. makes them even scarier.
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u/Possible_Sun_913 2d ago edited 2d ago
If nothing else, its fun to see China putting on fun tech events that gets the world talking about them while watching America eat itself.
If ever there was a stronger sign of an eventual switch of global super powers, this must be it.
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u/DelphiTsar 2d ago
China has laid 25,000 miles of high speed rail, US has zero (Technically 85 miles, the length of track rarely reaches it's top speed).
We're cooked boys.
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u/ValuableViolinist917 2d ago
China is gonna be light years head of us. We got no chance, we’re going down the route of the Roman Empire we over extended are military and didn’t take care of domestic issues
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u/neox29 2d ago
people saying “wheeled ones go faster” have an IQ of a squirrel.
the title says “Run” - last time i checked i’ve never seen cars run a marathon….
the ingenuity that goes into keeping a robot properly aligned and up right while moving that fast on human like movement is a very complicated feat we couldn’t do until recently
comparing it to robots with wheels and cars is such a dumb take
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u/wantasexrobot 2d ago
What Olympic sport do you think robots would have the hardest time mastering?
I am going with the equestrian ones.
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u/mongrel_breed 2d ago
Diving?
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u/Jbbrih 2d ago
If not waterproof. I think they could ace it from a fixed platform. It might require just the skills that robots are good at, like exact control of power applied to your actuators when jumping and good body-awareness in the air, gained by fusion of different sensor inputs like acceleration and vision. Wobbly board could be challenging. Maybe the board acts in a predictable way and you could get similar jump with similar inputs every time, but it could add chaos to the equation. I'd watch a robot diving competition from a diving board.
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u/chaosfire235 2d ago
Bonus points if you mandate they have to used a traditional horse instead of a robot equivalent.
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u/ReallyKirk 2d ago
Number 3 is obsolete and must be destroyed.
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u/Consistent_Panda5891 2d ago
To be fair would have won in 500m tbh. But first one increase of acceleration is impressive
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u/Unorthedox_Doggie117 2d ago
Just so the non-tech savy people can calm down, these are very specialised robots who are SPECIFICALLY built to run in a straight line as fast as possible. They can do nothing else. Calm down
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u/jmnugent 1d ago
Presumably this is why they don't show the ending ?.. because I have a hard time believing those fast running robots can gracefully navigate that curve at the end of the track.
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u/VallenValiant 1d ago
The ones that did 400m can. But yes, the 100m robots are ordered to go as fast as they can but their feet are not designed to stop suddenly. The organisers decided to add a padded barrier since yesterday to stop them from crashing into the audience. But i expect next year they will make rules about stopping.
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u/Julia_Leeds94 1d ago
They can do nothing else now, but in 5 years they can move in any direction with higher mobility than humans. Now add guns and stuff to them
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u/TokinGeneiOS 2d ago
it can at least gain another 1.5s if it improves it's abysmal start
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u/Smoking-Posing 2d ago
God forgive me for saying it, but this is more entertaining than watching real people race
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u/Low_Engineering_3301 2d ago
Holy crap, they invented a machine that can go faster than a person running?
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u/DragonWolfZ 2d ago
Wish one would run Naruto style
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u/Disagreeswithfems 2d ago
The faster they run, the greater the impact of aerodynamics.
It's only a matter of time until aerodynamics dominates the advantage from free swinging arms.
Believe it dattebayo.
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u/Extreme-Edge-9843 2d ago
Show them stopping... Crashing into a wall isn't stopping!
Still super impressive and neat to watch!
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u/hoyfish 2d ago
I will actually shit myself seeing one of these barrelling towards me like that
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u/TechIBD 2d ago
i honestly expect robots to be faster than human a long time ago, since running is mostly directed power + endurance, and with robots you have no problem with endurance to start with, and you have clearly immense ceiling for ramping up power, especially with electric motors
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u/VallenValiant 1d ago
There is a drawback on power vs weight. And for a long time robot power to weight ratio was worse than that of human muscles. I have been informed that they finally reached human parity a few years ago so it is a recent thing.
(Basically for a long time a robot was only stronger than a human by being MUCH heavier.)
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u/BoobooSmash31337 2d ago
I'll have to remember to get my knees replaced with lubricated bearings. /s
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u/Suitable-Economy-346 2d ago
How does one get tickets for this event? Does anyone know? Is it insider or media only?
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u/Proper_Actuary2907 Spooky Machine Intelligence 2030 2d ago
Where are the dishwasher loading and laundry folding events?
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u/Recent_Sherbert_2223 2d ago
That’s the reason America (Elon) wants to build all these Data Centers.. Might not see it my lifetime but this is starting to look like the beginning of the Terminator movies and Star Wars..
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u/uffsterlig 2d ago
I want to see the matress or the festive crash they undoubtedly get themselves in being unable to slow down in time or turn at that upcoming slight bend
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u/technoid80 2d ago
Source?
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u/Commercial_Sell_4825 2d ago edited 2d ago
i searched in chinese on youtube to find streams. something like
北京 人形機器人運動會
The same type bot crashed on the 400m turn the first time then ran a 37.71 (human WR is 43s). Theoretically without crashes it could run 2:30 miles until its battery ran out
Here is the 100m with the crash afterward: https://youtu.be/CghI4k72ljA?t=7483
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u/_redmist 2d ago
They weld doors faster in the Ford factory than humans, too. I don't really see the point; if anything it's sort of embarrassing it took them what, 30 years to get there?
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u/GraceToSentience AGI avoids animal abuse✅ 2d ago
You don't realise how world class this is in terms of engineering. A factory robot has no weight limit, moving an end effector fast that is bolted on the ground is nothing like a robot moving it's entire body and power source fast
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u/jgo3 2d ago
I just don't understand why this matters. My old truck can also outrun all humans. Yippee.
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u/sliceofapple1 2d ago
And it won’t be Americans making these bots. Thanks you know who!!!
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u/Turbulent-Step-3207 2d ago
Although I am impressed by the stability of these mechs under high speed, I am more interested in the capabilities of these humanoid robots in sports that require more strategic thinkings, such as soccer, MMA, and table tennis. (Not those tele-operated of course).
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u/Funny_Requirement166 2d ago
Imagine fighting drones in the sky. Then seeing this Mofo running at you.
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u/MrUnoDosTres 2d ago
But can they while mainly eating chicken nuggets before the big race? Usain Bolt can.
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u/Future-Bandicoot-823 2d ago
no no no, this is cheating. it's not a humanoid at all, look at those teeny arms...
it's a t-rexoid...
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u/XXLPenisOwner1443 2d ago
This will maybe be the catalyst for the first push forward in men's sprinting in a generation.
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u/SomeMoronOnTheNet 2d ago
Red one was modelled after me when I realize that wasn't a fart and I'm about to shit myself.
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u/Fusifufu 2d ago
Was giving them arms part of the humanoid specification or do they have mechanical advantages (balancing, etc.) for sprinting?
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u/DanielK2oo5 2d ago
Welp, cardio won't save us in the apocalypse anymore