Humanoid 'robots' at Chinese conference turn out to be real people
A company at China’s robots conference hired actors to pose as lifelike robots.
FILE: Two people cosplayed as robots at World Robot Conference 2024 in Beijing. Picture: @Byron_Wan/X screenshot
Clarence Ford speaks with Barbara Friedman about this and other stories trending online.
Listen below.
China recently hosted the World Robot Conference in Beijing, where companies showcased the country’s progress in robotics.
At the five-day conference, dozens of humanoid robots were unveiled.
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However, at one display the company hired humans to act like lifelike robots.
“They were flesh and blood women dressed in half robot suits.”
- Barbara Friedman
A person posted videos of the fake robots on X which have since gone viral.
During the World Robot Conference 2024 in Beijing from Aug 21 - Aug 25, 🇨🇳 animatronics company EX-Robot (or EX Robots as reported by some news media) hired 2 women cosplayed as robots to spice up the exhibition.
— Byron Wan (@Byron_Wan) August 26, 2024
Hmmm… two human beings mimicked the movements of robots that… pic.twitter.com/hRGxgfe4mD
In case anyone still doesn’t believe there’re two human beings cosplayed as robots (right video) at World Robot Conference 2024 in Beijing… https://t.co/9cqSOl8hn7 pic.twitter.com/EQ7dejOByO
— Byron Wan (@Byron_Wan) August 27, 2024
The response was mixed with some saying these were obviously humans and that the company did not claim them to be robots, while others said they were fooled.
Finally found the video of the viral Robot girl from the Beijing World Robotics Congress that I was looking for! pic.twitter.com/m1FptslVWl
— AshutoshShrivastava (@ai_for_success) August 28, 2024
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