Unitree’s quadruped robots are frequently put to interesting uses — beach cleanup and er… flamethrowers come to mind — so perhaps we should be worried that it’s teaching its G1 humanoid robot to fight. After all, we’re expecting a Machine War™ at some point. If it’s fought with gloves in an actual boxing ring, the apocalypse might not be so bad.
The robotics manufacturer dropped a brief teaser video (below) to hype up its longer showing of “robot combat” in the next month or so. It features what looks like the Unitree G1 robot going head to head with both a human and robot opponent. Gloves and head protection all round, too.
Unitree of forbidden knowledge
Unitree’s video will provoke quite the Uncanny Valley reaction for viewers if our response to it is any indication. Despite feeling like the clip was generated by AI, it’s obvious that there’s a real robot and a real human in the ring. It’s also obvious that the human is taking it easy on the G1.
The last obvious thing, based on the robot-on-robot combat segment, is that we can take Unitree’s ‘bot in a fight. For now. The two combatants are short and lightweight, like we could punt it out of the ring if we stopped playing by the rules. The R310,000 Unitree G1 stands just 1.3 metres tall and weighs 35kg with the battery in. But seeing it level and block blows, clinch with its opponent, and even rise from the floor after being knocked down is disconcerting. We’d check its battery uptime before stepping into the ring, just in case.
We’ll be tuning in to the company’s live-streamed robot combat when it turns up, and we’ll let you know when that is so you can do the same.
