AI goes one step further: robots run alongside humans in a historic half marathon

The Yizhuang half-marathon in Beijing this year had a first-of-its-kind race with twenty-one humanoid robots competing alongside flesh-and-blood runners. The machines running the 13-mile course came in all shapes and sizes from less than four feet tall to nearly six-foot droids.

Chinese robots run into the future

The winning droid was Tiangong Ultra, from the Beijing Innovation Center of Human Robotics. It managed to complete the half-marathon in two hours and forty minutes, well behind the winner of the men’s race whose time was one hour and two minutes.

The robotic center’s chief technology officer explained that Tiangong Ultra benefited from its long legs and algorithm that allows the robot to imitate how humans run a marathon. The droid had to switch batteries three times during its 13-mile run.

“I don’t want to boast but I think no other robotics firms in the West have matched Tiangong’s sporting achievements,” said Tang.

Not all the robots finished the race, with a couple crashing right out of the starting gate. Other bipedal robots needed a hand from their human trainers to stay upright.

“Chinese companies have really focused on showing off walking, running, dancing, and other feats of agility,” Alan Fern, professor of computer science, artificial intelligence and robotics at Oregon State University, told Reuters. “Generally, these are interesting demonstrations, but they don’t demonstrate much regarding the utility of useful work or any type of basic intelligence.”

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