Sometimes, life doesn’t go your way. Sometimes you lose. And then, sometimes, you fail before you start and end up shattering all your plastic bits after falling onto a hard asphalt road while kicking around wildly as your arms fly off. That’s what recently happened to a poor robot marathon runner in China in a clip that has gone viral online.
On April 19, the Beijing E-Town Humanoid Robot Half-Marathon will happen in China. But in the days leading up to the event, robots and the teams who build and maintain them get a chance to practice, test out their artificial runners, and work out any issues before the big day. This often leads to a lot of robots falling over, as documented in this video from the event’s practice rounds posted on Twitter. But usually these robots have at least been moving around for a bit before they finally fall to the ground like drunk people running to the bathroom.
That wasn’t the case for one robot who, in the process of trying to get to the starting line for what appears to be a practice run, falls over with a hard thud and promptly shatters and freaks out at the same time.
Damn. That’s rough. And also very funny to watch. The panicked leg kicks are fun. I also like how after a few seconds it just… gives up.
Truth be told, if I fell over, shattered my skin, and lost an arm in the process, I too would kick about for a minute before just giving it a rest and hoping someone nearby has a stretcher to save me. Lucky for the robot, that’s exactly what was waiting for it. The moment the bot smashed into the road, a small team of humans rushed over with a stretcher and helped it off the road, likely taking it to a team of engineers who, based on videos of other running bots from the event, have a busy week ahead of them.
Anyway, stay tuned to Kotaku for more ongoing coverage of robots fucking up. If the future is really humans being replaced with AI and robots, at least we can have a laugh at them before they take our jobs and lives away. That seems fair.
