A Chinese Robot Just Broke Usain Bolt's 100-Meter Record — and Its Own Industry Says the Hard Part Is Still Years Away
About This Episode
On Saturday, the opening day of the second World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, a humanoid built by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center ran the 100 meters in 9.39 seconds, beating Usain Bolt's 9.58-second human world record. The same robot needed 21.50 seconds for the same distance at last year's inaugural games. Two days earlier, at a robotics conference across town, Unitree's founder told the industry that the breakthrough that actually matters — a robot that can walk into an unfamiliar home and do the chores — could still be ten years out.
Our Take
A robot beat Usain Bolt's record on Saturday by running in a straight line with longer legs, and in the same week the industry's own star founder pushed the useful breakthrough — a machine that can handle an unfamiliar room — back to as much as ten years, which is the difference between a body that moves and a mind that copes.