Antigravity, the drone-making spinoff from Chinese action camera maker Insta360, has a new presentation that’s supposed to either a) make you think ‘this is pretty cool’, or b) give you a creeping sense of anxiety. The company has released a video of Unitree’s G1 robotic humanoid flying one of its A1 drones.
The showcase is supposed to point out how simple it is for anyone to pick up an Antigravity A1 and just zip off into the skies with it. The concern is that robots are able to perform relatively human functions like… flying a drone. Don’t let anyone tell Volodymyr Zelensky this is an option now.
Antigravity overlord
Disconcerting drone-flying skills aside, the Unitree G1 is still easily taken in one-on-one combat by a standard human male, no matter how many martial arts lessons the robot has had. Even its drone control, which is barely visible in the smashcut-heavy presentation video (above), isn’t cause for concern. It all amounts to pulling a trigger. Depending on what’s being triggered, that’s not a problem. The Unitree G1 could wield a Glock 17, but not an AK47 — weight matters. Either way, the recoil would put it off target very soon.
Antigravity’s video wasn’t intended to get us talking about the potential of humanoid robots to use small arms and machine guns, however. It was supposed to showcase its new A1, a 249-gram commercial drone for the mass market. The A1 features an 8K 360° camera, utilising Insta360’s camera tech for impressive visuals that apparently lets users “freely reframe their footage while editing” instead of paying attention to what’s going on. Landing return, payload detection, and other drone features are part of the unit, said to be launching in January 2026.
The big feature being punted here is the simple-to-use controller and (probably) the FPV goggles that let folks without motion sickness navigate the Antigravity A1 through doubtless well-planned video shots. Still… we can’t help but think about armies of armed robots stomping down streets in search of folks with low enough social credit scores.
