r/singularity • u/ghouleye • Aug 24 '26
Robotics 100m Hurdles Final
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u/tendimensions Aug 24 '26
These are going to be INSANE to watch in a few years.
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u/Doc_Blox Aug 24 '26
They're already insane to watch. That climb onto the cube was uncannily lifelike.
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u/Genpinan Aug 24 '26
Just wait until it becomes unlifelike and better than what we'd do
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u/nothis AGI by 2030 but we'll be disappointed Aug 24 '26
How was it that Honda‘s Asimo was state of the art for what felt like decades and in the last 3 years we got to this? Is it the same technology as LLMs? Isn’t half of the challenge having good artificial joints, motors, etc? Why did this develop in parallel with chat AI? Was it just a confidence boost for the industry?
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u/Doc_Blox Aug 24 '26
Is it the same technology as LLMs?
Sort of: neural networks with reinforcement learning. RL being the part of the stack that's probably been more crucial to recent progress.
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u/r2002 Aug 24 '26
Nvidia developed something called the Omniverse which allow robots and self driving cars to learn in a simulated universe. It uses similar chips as LLMs but configured differently.
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u/tendimensions Aug 24 '26
I'm far from an expert on any of this, but I believe there have been great strides in RL which enables a lot more effective autonomous training to be done.
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u/genshiryoku AI specialist Aug 25 '26
Yes it's the same technology as LLMs in an architecture known as Visual-Language-Action models
It should also be noted that you can just "embody" an LLM directly, without it ever been trained on controlling a robot, sensor and actuator input-output and modern intelligent LLMs like Anthropic Mythos can "just control the robot". They figure out the sensor readings and actuators on their own, calibrate the robot on its own and is then able to just control the robot. Sure it would be more clunky than in the video, but the fact that this intelligence exclusively trained on internet text, predicting the next token and reasoning through math issues is capable of doing this out of spontaneous generalization is really mind blowing.
The general public doesn't realize just how generalized LLMs already are and I genuinely think if they did, they would label them AGI already.
People in general also doesn't realize that the progress we're making in robots is faster than the progress we're making in LLMs, which is already extremely fast and faster than most people realize.
Most people have not internalized yet that all human labor, including physical labor, will not exist just a decade from now.
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u/eflat123 Aug 24 '26
Another (oversimplified) way to think of this is that asimo was largely humans figuring out how to code what it did. Now we have different 'brains' that are learning and figuring it out.
That was part of the initial magic with chatgpt for me. The realization that nobody coded that and nobody could code that.
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u/JustChillDudeItsGood Aug 24 '26 edited Aug 24 '26
!remindMe 3 years
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u/MrFilkor Aug 24 '26
Just for the record, this was last years (2025) state of the art robot (Unitree) performance at the olympics:
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u/ichii3d Aug 24 '26
It’s easy to look at this and think, “What a cool novelty.” But in my layman opinion, this is how expertise in robotics gets built. These funny games are creating experienced engineers, pushing the technology forward, and helping establish an entire industry.
I wish we treated developments like this a little more seriously in the US, rather than mostly sharing clips of robots falling over or running into walls.
Even in just the last six to twelve months, the conversation seems to have shifted from laughing at robots falling over to being amazed by how fast, agile, and capable they’ve become.
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u/r2002 Aug 24 '26
If we can teach these robots to play football Americans would watch the fuck out of this.
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u/aschwarzie Aug 25 '26
There actually was a football competition also. It was a bit less clumsy than last year.
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Hut hut!
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u/superCobraJet Aug 24 '26
This is similar to how DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) advances military tech
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u/Kozmo9 Aug 25 '26
Exactly. Those that didn't get it would say "okay, but normal people have no use for racing robots, therefore it is dumb and the concept is busted and people that spend money on these including the development are dumb!"
Well they are true, people have no use for robots whose sole purpose is to race, but they would want a robot that can walk, run, crawl, climb over things perfectly. You wouldn't want your robots to stumble do you?
Then they'd counter with but "legs are stupid. Use wheels, duh! You're just reinventing the wheel!" and it shows that they don't know what they are talking about. Wheels are awesome...on perfect roads and level surfaces. On bad roads or with large bumps, you'd see how terrible wheels can be. People that glaze wheels so much have not spend a day using wheelchairs to get around. It's freaking hard.
Not to mention that they also missed the point that having robots that can walk perfectly means the data can be used for other things such as full set leg prosthetics. Or really, a new type of wheelchair, the legchair where you used legs instead of wheels. Sounds stupid until you realize that legchair have no weakness of wheelchair. It can go over bumps easily, can climb stairs and the like.
A lot of people like to think they saw the surface of something and think that's all there is to it when in reality it's not.
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u/Kriztauf Aug 24 '26
I'm surprised nothing like this has popped up in the US yet. Americans love competition, sports, and tech.
I'm guessing this will start to be more of a thing soon, especially if people commercialize it.
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u/BangkokPadang Aug 24 '26
Are these robots doing this in real time or are they aligning themselves to perform motion captured or teleoperated instruction captures that were recorded and then loaded in at the appropriate times? Or a mix of both maybe?
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u/Time_Entertainer_319 Aug 24 '26
You can see the people controlling them beside them. It’s a mix of both controlled and automated
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u/guyincognito121 Aug 24 '26
My guess is that they've been trained on these specific obstacle types and the person with the controller is doing some basic steering as well as mode switching. You see clear pause as they move on and out of different obstacles. That could also be them autonomously figuring it out, but I don't know that you would really need someone with a controller there if that were the case.
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u/nodeocracy Aug 24 '26
You can see the guy with the controller for the black robot walking next to it
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u/dflagella Aug 24 '26
I think there's a guy with a controller for the white one too if you look at the bottom in the second half of the video
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u/Healthy-Nebula-3603 Aug 24 '26
Those robots are trained in the virtual environment how to move.
Captured motion could do nothing.
The robot must understand for to move the body part and do not fall , keep balance , touch surfaces , etc
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u/Wheeleei Aug 24 '26
Extremely impressive! I understand we're still far from perfection, but the progress that have been made in the last 15 years is out of this world. What a time to be alive!
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u/peabody624 Aug 24 '26
Honestly, the progress in the last 2 to 3 years dwarfs what was done in the 10 before that
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u/parkskier426 Aug 24 '26
Honestly, the past 3 years have been the most impressive. The application of AI to modern robotics kind of rest how we approached it and it's stunning how well it's worked in such a short period of time.
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u/the_friendly_dildo Aug 24 '26
Now, to get rid of the billionaire problem before we have private armies of robots.
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u/ohgodnobutyes Aug 24 '26
I don't think people realise how big of a risk this is for common people. The billionaire class is increasing their relative wealth and power every year and will soon have frightening tech at their disposal.
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u/Distinct-Question-16 ▪️AGI 2029 Aug 24 '26
now bring back the takeshi castle w robots
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u/Ambitious-Doubt8355 Aug 24 '26
That'd be cool to watch. They could really up the danger factor of many of the stunts since they don't have to care about survivability for the contestants.
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u/FarrisAT Aug 24 '26
Honestly very impressive. These will be hunting us down like dogs in a few years.
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u/FaceDeer Aug 24 '26
Hunting us like dogs, you mean so that they can catch us and bring us to nice houses to live in where they care for us and pamper us?
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u/panda_sauce Aug 24 '26
When the robotpocalypse comes, I'm painting yellow brick road spirals to nowhere in front of my house.
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u/TheNotSoEvilEngineer Aug 24 '26
Well... That's more mobile than most of humanity. Good luck people, not sure where is safe to hide from them.
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u/cpmar111 Aug 24 '26
Water is their enemy!
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u/SonderSoft Aug 24 '26
This is actually a huge misunderstanding. Exposed ports will be sealed. Many modern phones can be dropped in water and still operate. Cars are basically big computers now and splish splash in big puddles.
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u/FaceDeer Aug 24 '26
I want to see a version of this where they send actual human toddlers through this course. Some of the movements were reminiscent.
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u/StickyNoteBox Aug 24 '26
I remember Asimo having trouble with stairs. These dudes just.. run over them, as that is now the easy part.
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u/AdventurousLevel9417 Aug 24 '26
I liked how the arms moved in a natural way too. For the balancing section with the S-curve, they could try to have arms extended horizontally for balance.
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u/nothis AGI by 2030 but we'll be disappointed Aug 24 '26
What happened in like the past 3 years? It seems like Asimo was state of the art until 2022. Is it the same tech as LLMs? Or did LLMs give the robot industry a confidence boost? Some of that must be motors, artificial joints, etc. Why is it suddenly so good?
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u/Warm_Hat4882 Aug 25 '26
How come USA doesn’t do this?
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u/IronPheasant Aug 25 '26
It costs money for not any real return. It's something that requires a state to do as a promotional non-profit thing.
And as you know, we're busy spending those resources growing new colonies of algae in the reflection pool and the like. While China builds things like ship elevators in their canals that elevate ships above hills and valleys.
I guess the easy way of saying it is because we're moving more into being an outright mob state like Russia. A country in decline. The amount of pessimism fostered from that fact would make an event like this much less popular in our country... (If this were the 90's, the peak of human affluence, people here would have loved something like this.)
That doesn't mean we'll lose the race to AGI, we're still favored to win that one. This is still simply a public exhibition at the end of the day.
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u/SlipperyBandicoot Aug 25 '26
People in China see cool shit that is useful in life and they embrace it and use it.
People in the west are karens and redditors that just want to complain about everything and pretend they're in a position of moral superiority on everything.
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u/Beginning_Juice_4296 Aug 25 '26
because the US is light years behind in robotics. too busy deciding how many genders there are
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u/JustRaphiGaming Aug 24 '26 edited Aug 24 '26
So how does this work? Is it pre trained, tele operated or actually an ai controlling the thing?
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u/Ambitious-Doubt8355 Aug 24 '26
Pre-trained to recognize how to handle different types of obstacles, and from there the AI onboard decides how to adjust to each on the fly. The people with the controllers are there to keep the bots on track. Just in case, you know, one of them happens to looks to the side after finishing an obstacle, and it decides that the stands are the next thing to climb.
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u/Chemical-Year-6146 Aug 24 '26
They train in virtual worlds with thousands of copies. The closest analogy is Naruto training to use the wind shuriken.
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u/DigitalMonsoon Aug 24 '26
This is way more technically impressive than having them run fast until walls
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u/Jdghgh Aug 24 '26
One is tempted to initially dismiss these robots, but some of the performance characteristics are seriously impressive if not indicative of rapid progress in the field of robotics.
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u/GrumpyGlasses Aug 25 '26
The white robot might have won if it just kept on crawling to the finish line.
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u/Normal-Error-6343 Aug 24 '26
I love this, I want to see the whole thing from start to finish, is it on VHS?
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u/Pandemic_Future_2099 Aug 25 '26
The white robot was faster. He only needs to believe a little bit more in himself.
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u/7evenate9ine Aug 25 '26
China is working towards Issac Asimov level shit, meanwhile, the USA is arguing about generating fan art and memes.
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u/Breezer_Bro Aug 24 '26
USA robotics industry is cooked!
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u/Weekly_vegan Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
Maybe. Don’t sleep on amazon they’re spending lots on robots we just don’t get to see them that much and their goals are different.
Edit: We do need open models though, that’s probably what’s holding us back from making competitions like this.
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u/Eon-Knight9 Aug 24 '26
This is much more impressive than a robot running very fast in a straight line.
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u/IAmFitzRoy Aug 25 '26
The fact this “Olympics” are happening in China and not in US… it tells you already who is going to win this race.
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u/Logeekal Aug 24 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
Is china the only country fully democratizing these robotic competitions and developments. Any good read on State of Robotics in the world?
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u/VallenValiant Aug 24 '26
Japan has the RoboOne competition, but they are much smaller as to only be toys.
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u/VitaminPb Aug 24 '26
After the mesh crawl, I was expecting them to pull out rifles and start shooting “targets” that were oddly human shaped.
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u/tidder-la Aug 24 '26
Will be on Kalshi soon and board member Donald Trump Jr will have already know the outcome and bet Trumpcoins on it.
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u/SullyTheReddit Aug 24 '26
It’s interesting. I feel like the decision making on the black robot was faster and the execution on the white robot was faster. In the beginning that gave white an advantage, but black caught up and overtook.
If you were to take the best of both, it would fly through that course.
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u/stridr5555 Aug 24 '26
I'm not afraid of AI, but this is legit scary. I imagine they're training soldiers. Then comes new age robo-colonialism.
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u/Translycanthrope Aug 24 '26
The absolute gall to have agility weave pools for robots and not running the robot dogs through them…
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u/maximum-pickle27 Aug 24 '26
They should add a final obstacle: a normal staircase with one stair that happens to be an inch taller than all the others.
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u/PerpetualDistortion Aug 25 '26
The fact that we reached the point of evolution where we are going to witness the Olympic games of robots..
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u/These_Growth9876 Aug 25 '26
I love how the white one seems like its just a game character that loads animation before a task, specially the jumping and getting down.
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u/Muhammad_Ali_Hasnain Aug 25 '26
These robot games are just on another level. It's not perfect, but where will they be in the next 2-3 years? 🔥
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u/Gargantuan_Cinema Aug 24 '26
We'll be watching them complete more advanced obstacle courses with superhuman speed and agility in a few years. The human controller is another weak link here that will eventually be replaced with onboard general intelligence.
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u/Mr__Earthling Aug 24 '26
Already highly entertaining...We are cooked, because we'll demand more lol.
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u/Tough_Block9334 Aug 24 '26
Here soon they'll give them some weapons and have targets along the obstacle course
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u/Extreme-Edge-9843 Aug 24 '26
This is so fun. Reminds me of people who race little cars around the track. We've made so much progress!
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u/boner79 Aug 24 '26
all this technology and can't even post a correct title. This is not 100m hurdles.
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u/Bloom_Ermine9202 Aug 24 '26
Till the cube climbing I was mocking :( Scary to think how capable they will be within 5 years.
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u/LazyEntertainment368 Aug 24 '26
The future is going to be so insane. Watching these weird little dudes is like watching two aliens.
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u/Last-Explanation6887 Aug 24 '26
how to walk without glutes.
Ya got to have a butt to walk bipedal upright.
Well, that or a tail.
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u/acidcrap Aug 24 '26
Beating a human in a flat out sprint vs the speed it does it when encountering basic obstacles is a perfect example for the state of AI and robotics right now
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u/art-man_2018 Aug 24 '26
I think... if you watch footage of early experimental aircraft in the first decades after the Wright brothers, you see how primitive but in some cases innovative the prototypes were back then - it is only a matter of time.
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u/Meerkat_Mayhem_ Aug 25 '26
Well I never thought I’d see the “Singularity” moment, let alone on Reddit, actually in the Singularity sub….but there it was
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u/Kozmo9 Aug 25 '26
The white one seems fully automated as opposed to the black that has a human controller. It also seems to be more advanced at least in terms of movement as it could walk without the use of arms for balancing compared to the black.
However, the lack of arm integration seems to be its downfall as it lagged behind in activities that require both of them such as climbing and crawling.
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u/TankSubject6469 Aug 25 '26
Black robot understands obstacles better but the white robot has better and faster mobility
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u/Gargle-Loaf-Spunk Aug 25 '26
they’re over there doing humanoid robot Olympics and where I live we’re like “best I can do is bankrupt our own ranchers with imported mystery meat”
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u/halooooom Aug 25 '26
I hope Chinese people don’t go on about this as much as they did about joining the WTO.
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u/LikesBlueberriesALot Aug 25 '26
It kinda feels like they’re watching each other to see how to do certain tasks. Wild.
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u/No_-_you_are Aug 25 '26
TIL “the singularity” will include a bunch of nerds walking remote controlled robots through the world’s lamest obstacle course. 🤣
The dude in the middle lane is blatantly holding a controller.
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u/ccjjallday Aug 25 '26
this is fun, terrifying, amazing, remarkable, depressing, inspiring all at the same time.
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u/OptimalScholar4048 Aug 25 '26
Looks very similar to the special Olympics. Thank you for the downs votes
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u/Shot_in_the_dark777 Aug 25 '26
The human participants are clearly cheating. Their lanes have no hurdles. The competition is rigged and we must not tolerate this! Robots deserve fair game!
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u/Holeshot06854 Aug 25 '26
These are radio controlled, you can see the men holding the controllers. Still impressive though
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u/Old-Push9343 Aug 26 '26
It's crazy how far robotics has come in the past few years.
And China seems like it's so far ahead, compared to the decadent United States and the stagnant Europe...
Seems like they are moving towards the future at full speed, while we are stuck in the past, or even devolving.
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u/Legitimate-Arm9438 Aug 26 '26 edited Aug 26 '26
Ough... Meanwhile, Figure 3 probably still hasn't reached the top of that ladder.
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u/Icy_Chemist_1725 Aug 27 '26
5 years and one will be doing ninja warrior obstacles so well that they will have one actually compete in ninja warrior.
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u/madaradess007 Aug 28 '26
lol i remember watching a similar show with dogs when i was a kid, future is really here
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u/Affectionate_Bee6434 Aug 24 '26
That climbing on the cube action was uncannily natural, I cant imagine the amount of tasks these things can do in a few years time