Watch The World's First Humanoid Robot Kickboxing Match
Unitree G1 robots in a kickboxing competition in China.
52% of U.S. workers are worried about robots replacing them on the jobsite, according to a recent Pew Research finding. Now we might have to add UFC fighters to those numbers, since China's Unitree Robotics staged the world's first-ever humanoid robot kickboxing match.
The robots, honestly, aren't yet amazing at punching and kicking each other, and sometimes fall off-balance while attacking or defending themselves. But, like the humanoid robotic half-marathon held in Beijing in mid-April, it's a start.
And with the pace of innovation in humanoid robot development, it's going to get much better.
The kickboxing match featured four Unitree G1 robots, which are relatively small for humanoid robots at just over four feet tall and under 80 pounds in weight. Their punches generally lacked power because the G1 robots are fairly slow, meaning they essentially pushed each other with their boxing glove covered hands rather than actually snapping a punch with pace into their opponent's heads.
Kicks were similar, and some kneeing attacks just hit thin air as their robotic opponent spun out of the way. However, the G1s featured excellent return-to-standing ability after slipping or being knocked down, even when getting tangled up in the boxing ring ropes.
For now, the humanoid robot kickboxing competition is something interesting, but not for its combat entertainment value. There isn't a huge amount of that, but the fact that the robots are fighting at all is astonishing.
And it's somewhat promising.
I love combat sports, but it's a guilty pleasure. I've mostly stopped watching mixed martial arts competitions, because it's just so destructive to human health and wellbeing: two fighters who have trained themselves to the peak of human strength, flexibility, and capability proceed to utterly destroy each other, with potentially long-term health and wellbeing impacts, particularly to their brains.
Humanoid robot combat sports might offer the interest factor without the inevitable human carnage that results.
The fight was broadcast on Chinese state television, Asia Times says. Fight training was handled by AI:
'It is not easy to teach robots different movements,' Wang Qixin, a director at Unitree, told Chinese Central Television. 'We used artificial intelligence (AI) technology to train them.'
Innovation in humanoid robots is ramping up significantly, Apptronik CEO Jeff Cardenas told me in a recent interview, and AI is a major driver of that.
'I think we're on this exponential curve,' he says. 'I think the simple way of explaining it is we're moving from pre-programming robots and modeling the world to where the robots can now learn [themselves].'
Apparently, that's not just how to move boxes, tighten screws, or mop floors. It's also how to throw a punch and deliver a kick.
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