People continue to bully robots
Representatives of the Chinese company Unitree Robotics have picked up on a trend once set by engineers at Boston Dynamics. The published footage shows a robot being kicked from every conceivable angle.
The robot falls, gets up, is dropped again—and so on. The company calls this "antigravity mode," although it looks more like bar fight training.
The robot-kicking tradition began with Boston Dynamics, whose videos of their robots being pushed around evoked mixed feelings among viewers. It's now a standard stability test. The G1 uses gyroscopes, accelerometers, and balance algorithms to determine body position and adjust posture in milliseconds.
The robot performs brilliantly. The question is: are we ready for a future where robots remember every kick?
