An Indian professor has sparked ridicule after falsely suggesting a Chinese-made robot dog displayed at a major AI summit in New Delhi was developed by her university.
According to two government officials, Galgotias University was ordered to take down its stand at the summit a day after the university’s professor of communications, Neha Singh, told state-run broadcaster DD News that robotic dog Orion was developed at the university.
Internet users, however, quickly identified the robot as the Unitree Go2, sold by China’s Unitree Robotics with a starting price tag of just $US1,600 ($2,271) and used widely in research and education.
In response to the online uproar, Galgotias said that while it did not build the machine, “what we are building are minds that will soon design, engineer, and manufacture such technologies”.
Chinese firm Unitree Robotics’s Go2 dog robot is used widely in education and research. (Supplied: Unitree Robotics)
“You need to meet Orion,” Neha Singh told an Indian TV reporter as the dog performed tricks such as waving at the camera and springing up on its hind legs.
“This has been developed by the centres of excellence at the Galgotias University,” Professor Singh said, touting the institution’s investments in artificial intelligence technology.
“As you can see, it can take all shapes and sizes … it’s quite naughty also,” she said.
In a statement posted on social media platform X the university said: “Let us be clear — Galgotias has not built this robodog, neither have we claimed.”
The “recently acquired” Unitree robodog is a “classroom in motion” and “our students are experimenting with it, testing its limits”, it said.
Under fire for her comments, Professor Singh told reporters on Wednesday that “things may not have been expressed clearly”.
“I did not communicate it properly,” said Singh, a professor of communications.
‘Truly embarrassing for India’, says opposition
Galgotias student Vaidik Mishra said the controversy was uncalled for.
“We were so hopeful that this summit will give us a platform to talk about our start-up. But now it is all about us lying about the robot, which is not even true. It was just a misunderstanding,” he told AFP.
The incident was an embarrassment for host country India, two government officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media.
India is hosting dozens of world leaders for its high-profile AI summit. (AP)
The India AI Impact Summit, billed as a flagship event in the Global South, is attended by at least 20 heads of state and governments, including French President Emmanuel Macron and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Also expected to attend are Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, and AMI Labs executive chair, Yann LeCun.
India’s opposition Congress party used the incident to attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is hosting dozens of national delegations at the five-day summit.
“The Modi government has made a laughing stock of India globally, with regard to AI. In the ongoing AI summit, Chinese robots are being displayed as our own,” the party wrote in a post on X.
“This is truly embarrassing for India,” it added, calling the incident “brazenly shameless”.
Humanoid robots are coming, but can they win our hearts and minds?
The summit kicked off on Monday with some organisational hiccups as attendees and exhibitors reported long queues and delays at the venue.
Several exhibitors took to social media to complain that their personal belonging and products on display were stolen.
Organisers later said the items were recovered and returned.
Mr Modi will address a session at the summit on Thursday.
The TV reporter who had conducted the interview, Tapas Bhattachary, urged viewers to take a broader perspective.
“If one out of hundreds of exhibitors wasn’t being up-front about their innovation, I would not give up on the entire [of] India’s youth who are very innovative,” Bhattachary said.
AFP/AP