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<\/p>\nAn 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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”.<\/p>\n
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Chinese firm Unitree Robotics’s Go2 dog robot is used widely in education and research. (Supplied: Unitree Robotics)<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
“As you can see, it can take all shapes and sizes \u2026 it’s quite naughty also,” she said.<\/p>\n
In a statement posted on social media platform X the university said: “Let us be clear \u2014 Galgotias has not built this robodog, neither have we claimed.”<\/p>\n
The “recently acquired” Unitree robodog is a “classroom in motion” and “our students are experimenting with it, testing its limits”, it said.<\/p>\n
Under fire for her comments, Professor Singh told reporters on Wednesday that “things may not have been expressed clearly”.<\/p>\n
“I did not communicate it properly,” said Singh, a professor of communications.<\/p>\n
‘Truly embarrassing for India’, says opposition<\/p>\n
Galgotias student Vaidik Mishra said the controversy was uncalled for.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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India is hosting dozens of world leaders for its high-profile AI summit. (AP)<\/p>\n
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 In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
“This is truly embarrassing for India,” it added, calling the incident “brazenly shameless”.<\/p>\n