While they’re seemingly still years away from completing actually useful tasks, like cleaning a messy apartment or doing the dishes, humanoid robots have developed plenty of capabilities over the past few years, from sprinting faster than any human ever to performing elaborate dance choreographies.
They’ve also been taught how to punch and even kickbox for their human overlords’ amusement, as one man visiting a store in Russia appears to have learned the hard way.
A viral CCTV video shows the individual lightly shoving what appears to be a Chinese Unitree G1 humanoid robot. After it recoils slightly, it suddenly starts playing cheesy fighting music and pops into a wide-legged stance, ready to pounce. Two store clerks then try to restrain the robot as it tries to throw technical, high-legged kicks.
One kick appears to hit a target, in the form of one of the clerk’s nether regions.
Twenty seconds later, the robotic assailant’s moves come to an abrupt end as it suddenly lifts up its arms as if to strike a T pose.
“They gave that thing a kung-fu beat down mode I’m in tears,” one X user wrote.
Other netizens took a far more serious tone.
“Not long now robots will be ripping peoples arms off in public,” one tweeted.
But it’d be far too soon to officially declare the beginning of a real robot uprising. The footage leaves us with far more questions than answers. We don’t know if the robot was being controlled remotely, for example, or following a predetermined sequence of actions as part of a tech demonstration.
Of course, it’s also entirely possible the entire confrontation was scripted and designed to get views on social media.
While it doesn’t appear to have resulted in any serious injuries, it wouldn’t have been the first time we’ve seen somebody get hurt by a humanoid robot. For instance, we’ve come across a video of a robot in a clown wig roundhousing kicking an innocent child, or another hit a man in the nose, causing him to bleed.
More on humanoid robots: Chinese Companies Are Unleashing AI-Powered Robo-Chefs