

China Just Held the First-Ever Humanoid Robot Fight Night (vice.com) 29
"We've officially entered the age of watching robots clobber each other in fighting rings," writes Vice.com.
A kick-boxing competition was staged Sunday in Hangzhou, China using four robots from Unitree Robotics, reports Futurism. (The robots were named "AI Strategist", "Silk Artisan", "Armored Mulan", and "Energy Guardian".) "However, the robots weren't acting autonomously just yet, as they were being remotely controlled by human operator teams."
Although those ringside human controllers used quick voice commands, according to the South China Morning Post: Unlike typical remote-controlled toys, handling Unitree's G1 robots entails "a whole set of motion-control algorithms powered by large [artificial intelligence] models", said Liu Tai, deputy chief engineer at China Telecommunication Technology Labs, which is under research institute China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.
More from Vice: The G1 robots are just over 4 feet tall [130 cm] and weigh around 77 pounds [35 kg]. They wear gloves. They have headgear. They throw jabs, uppercuts, and surprisingly sharp kicks... One match even ended in a proper knockout when a robot stayed down for more than eight seconds. The fights ran three rounds and were scored based on clean hits to the head and torso, just like standard kickboxing...
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the news.
A kick-boxing competition was staged Sunday in Hangzhou, China using four robots from Unitree Robotics, reports Futurism. (The robots were named "AI Strategist", "Silk Artisan", "Armored Mulan", and "Energy Guardian".) "However, the robots weren't acting autonomously just yet, as they were being remotely controlled by human operator teams."
Although those ringside human controllers used quick voice commands, according to the South China Morning Post: Unlike typical remote-controlled toys, handling Unitree's G1 robots entails "a whole set of motion-control algorithms powered by large [artificial intelligence] models", said Liu Tai, deputy chief engineer at China Telecommunication Technology Labs, which is under research institute China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.
More from Vice: The G1 robots are just over 4 feet tall [130 cm] and weigh around 77 pounds [35 kg]. They wear gloves. They have headgear. They throw jabs, uppercuts, and surprisingly sharp kicks... One match even ended in a proper knockout when a robot stayed down for more than eight seconds. The fights ran three rounds and were scored based on clean hits to the head and torso, just like standard kickboxing...
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the news.
Reminds me of a book, but... (Score:3)
Anyone know the title and author? All I can remember is that the robots beat criminals to death for a kind of reality show. The criminals' offenses were minor, but fundamentally political.
I don't see how this can end well, but I don't think it's going to stay in China.
Re: (Score:2)
These ones are smaller than a typical Chinese adult by the looks of it. It's not clear how strong they are. Generally speaking though it seems like "enforcement droids" are pretty much inevitable, the best we can hope for being that they are mostly banned. Of course, like banned weapons, they will still be used, but not something most of us have to worry too much about.
What's more interesting here is how well these robots move. I have a feeling humanoid robots will be the next technology where we started ou
Re: (Score:2)
What I can remember of the book is that the robots were described as bigger than humans, and not particularly fast or agile, just strong, but it didn't matter because there were several of them and the room was locked. Pretty sure it was a dystopia novel or short story and there was no trace of a happy ending. I would estimate that I read it more than a decade ago and that it was already an old book.
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These ones are smaller than a typical Chinese adult by the looks of it. It's not clear how strong they are. Generally speaking though it seems like "enforcement droids" are pretty much inevitable, the best we can hope for being that they are mostly banned.
Uh, did you just say enforcement droid field testing with death row inmates?
Oh, you didn't? Shit, sorry. That damned imagination of mine drunk on fantasy.
(Investors) "Damn, talk about immor..wait. The fuck did you just say the PPV projections would be?!?"
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"However, the robots weren't acting autonomously just yet, as they were being remotely controlled by human operator teams."
So, Real Steel, then.
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So, Real Steel, then.
And Robot Jox [wikipedia.org].
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There is a stackoverflow sister site, dedicated to book related questions. You should ask there.
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Doesn't seem important enough to search for, especially on the basis of such a vague reference. And I even think it is sort of a good thing that I have forgotten so many of the details about this particular nasty story. In general I have a pretty strong memory for the books I've read and I can pull up quite a number of details even after decades...
But whenever I hear about "fighting robots" that one scene does come to mind.
Re: (Score:2)
I have a bat memory for names, but not for storylines.
And funnily, people just write "random crap" as questions and get book hints.
I understand your point of course.
The first? Hardly. (Score:2)
Has the submitter never heard of Robot Wars? Its been around decades. Ok, they weren't androids but were still robots. If they meant the first ever humanoid android fight then fair enough.
Yeah ok, my bad (Score:4, Insightful)
Just clocked the word humanoid in the title. Never mind RTFA , I didn't even RTFT properly. Duh.
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The first new weight class? Definitely. (Score:2)
Has the submitter never heard of Robot Wars? Its been around decades. Ok, they weren't androids but were still robots. If they meant the first ever humanoid android fight then fair enough.
I was thinking the same thing, but then I remembered the majority of those Robots are about as much of a threat to humanity as Chihuahuas are.
Needless to say Dana White ain't putting a rabid Roomba in the same weight class as IRL Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots.
competitors (Score:2)
more importantly, would any of these have a chance in Robot Wars or Battle Bots?
Kinda slow and unstable this year... (Score:2)
But next year neither Rambo nor Dutch will be able to beat them.
In a decade the world against China will be like the jar jars (sans the yodas) against the robot army.
Did they read the book, or watch the movie? (Score:2)
The first rule of the robot fight club is (Score:1)
Keep your public keys private!
Going for gold (Score:2)
in the olympics of stoopid ideas
new era zzz ... (Score:2)
"We've officially entered the age of watching robots clobber each other in fighting rings" writes vice.com
looks like vice.com never watched robot arena ... they would have seen home tuned toasters performing way better than these prototypes. granted, maybe with a different style.
amimojo, seriously ... :'D
China (Score:1)
Read the headline wrong (Score:2)
I thought they were putting robot-controlled humans in the fighting ring.
Why? (Score:1)
Why Human Beings (mostly men) are always willing to fight?
I know that evolution is a very slow process...
When will we learn and understand tha twhat we need is to cooperate?