Death, taxes, laughing uncontrollably at robots stacking it.
Artificial intelligence’s latest contribution to civilisation arrived this week in the form of a humanoid robot confidently dancing to Billie Jean before immediately collapsing into a lifeless heap on stage.
The clip, filmed during a robotics event in Shenzhen, shows the AGIBOT Expedition A3 moonwalking its way through what genuinely looked like an impressive performance. The rapid acceleration of robotic athleticism, particularly in China, has left global onlookers in a state of simultaneous awe and perturbance as videos of backflipping, gun-toting super-robots jet across our screens.
This particular chap could be seen gliding around confidently to MJ in the back, throwing out surprisingly smooth dance moves while audience members film on their phones. Then gravity intervenes.
After nearly losing balance near the edge of the stage once already, the robot returns to the exact same spot moments later and catastrophically folds itself into the floor while the music keeps pulsing.
A staff member then awkwardly drags the motionless android away, creating something of a modern-day renaissance-style art piece.
The reactions were, predictably, immediate and brutal.
There was a common theme of joking that humanity may have a little more time before the AI takeover truly sets in.
For several years now, the public has been bombarded with increasingly cinematic promises about humanoid robots replacing workers, running factories, caring for the elderly and possibly conquering consciousness itself. Elon Musk has repeatedly claimed Tesla’s Optimus could become “the biggest product ever”.
Venture capital money has flooded into robotics start-ups as Silicon Valley races to build machines capable of mimicking human movement and labour. Research labs like the famous Boston Dynamics have been uploading videos for years showing the industry’s cutting edge, but it still remains to be seen if humanoid robots will take hold in the consumer market.
Unfortunately for the soon-to-be-smarter-than-us machines, humans remain deeply entertained whenever one eats it in a flailing stack.
Recently, a marathon-running robot was smashed into pieces after tripping at an event, before being dramatically carried away on a stretcher by a medical crew.
The mechanical runner face-planted over the start line during a training session for Beijing‘s upcoming humanoid robot half-marathon.
Footage showed the lifelike machine poised and ready to begin before it suddenly stumbled and crashed to the floor with chunks of its frame flying through the air.
There are many other similar cases of clanker tomfoolery. Tesla’s Optimus robot has previously gone viral for stumbling during demonstrations, fuelling online conspiracy theories that parts of its movements were remotely controlled by humans wearing VR headsets.
Russia’s humanoid “AIdol” robot also famously collapsed during a live showcase last year. Boston Dynamics has leaned into the schtick, releasing several blooper reels of its robots being kicked over, slipping on ice, and generally humiliating themselves in public.
To be fair to the engineers, getting humanoid robots to move reliably is unbelievably difficult.
Researchers openly describe falling as one of the biggest unsolved problems in robotics. Entire academic papers now exist purely on teaching robots how to collapse more safely.
They might just need to play the Rocky soundtrack next time.