Robot goes rogue at school sports day, as handlers drag it away,
Shocking footage has revealed the moment a dancing robot went rogue at a school sports day.
The erratic performance took place at a school in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in north–western China.
At the start of the video, the robot could be seen performing dance moves and martial arts kicks on a sports field.
However, it all began to fall apart as students ran onto the pitch to perform a synchronised dance routine with the bot.
Seconds into the performance, the robot tripped itself up before falling to the ground.
As it writhed around, it started aiming kung–fu kicks towards baffled performers, who worriedly backed away from the bot.
Eventually, its handler ran onto the pitch and scooped it into his arms before any damage could be done.
Thankfully, no reports of injuries to students have emerged after the clip went viral on the Chinese social network Douyin.
Shocking footage has revealed the moment a dancing robot went rogue at a school sports day
One local said: ‘Too many people confused him, he wanted to dance without causing any harm.’
China has rapidly expanded the use of humanoid robots in public events, schools, and demonstrations in recent years as part of its ambitious push into advanced robotics and artificial intelligence.
However, there have been a spate of incidents which suggest the bots might not be ready.
In March, what should have been a family–friendly dance performance ended in disaster, after a young boy was slapped across the face by a rogue robot.
Shocking footage, filmed at a show in Shaanxi Province, China, on Saturday 21 March, shows a Unitree robot spinning around the stage.
It veers towards the crowd as it performs sweeping arm movements in time to the music.
As the bot gets closer, a young boy can be seen drawing his arms in, in the hopes of avoiding its flailing metal limbs.
Unfortunately, his attempts proved futile, as the robot caught the boy fully in the face during a pirouette.
China has rapidly expanded the use of humanoid robots in public events, schools, and demonstrations in recent years as part of its ambitious push into advanced robotics and artificial intelligence
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Meanwhile, a humanoid was even detained by police in China after terrifying an elderly woman.
‘With sales of humanoid robots set to skyrocket over the next decade, the public will increasingly be at risk from these kinds of incidents,’ said Carl Strathearn and Emilia Sobolewska, robotics experts at Edinburgh Napier University, in a recent article for The Conversation.
‘In our view as robotics researchers, governments have put very little thought into the risks.’
