Humanoid robot pulls unexpected move, hugs student at China university event

Beijing: A humanoid robot performing at a university dance event in China startled the crowd when it suddenly moved closer to a female student and hugged her, prompting the staff to quickly pull it away.

The video of the event at the university in China’s Shaanxi province went viral and sparked a debate in the Chinese social media about whether the robot developed autonomous behaviour or was manipulated by its handler.

The incident has prompted experts to work out enhanced safety measures as robots’ participation in public events became “new normal” in China with the government’s push to showcase the country’s growing might in the field of Artificial Intelligence(AI).

Commenting on the incident, a staff member told the media that the joint performance between the robot and a student club was an attempt to innovate campus cultural activities. The student involved was not injured and later declined media interview requests, the state-run Global Times reported on Sunday.

The robot’s unexpected behaviour has sparked discussion online. Some netizens wondered whether the robot had developed “independent awareness,” while others questioned whether the move was controlled by an operator or had been pre-arranged as part of the performance.

A university staff member denied that the move was pre-programmed, saying, “Based on what we understood at the time, the robot made a mistake,” according to the report.

The staff member was quoted by Global Times daily as saying that the “mistake” was an AI program malfunction.

The robot used in the performance was provided by an alumni-founded company and was returned after the event.

The university later contacted the company, which attributed the incident to signal interference at the venue, the Shangyou News report said.

According to the company, multiple drones were operating simultaneously during the performance, disrupting signals and leading to abnormal behaviour of the robot. The company said it was not pre-arranged.

Based on currently available information, the incident likely resulted from motion control anomalies, execution deviations or insufficient on-site safety redundancy, and should not be interpreted as the robot having developed independent awareness, Gao Huan, a deputy director of the Intelligent and Cognitive Laboratory at Chongqing Normal University, told Shangyou News.

Gao noted that a more important question for AI practitioners is why the robot was still able to come into contact with a human after abnormal behaviour occurred.  He explained that robots in stage performances typically operate based on pre-programmed motion scripts, or if human performers deviate from pre-set trajectories, unintended contact between robots and people may result.

Gao added that in open scenarios such as human-robot collaborative dance, exhibition interactions and campus performances, robots should not be treated merely as ordinary stage props, but as intelligent devices with inherent mechanical motion risks.

Organisers, operators and equipment providers should conduct prior risk assessments, including motion script testing, on-site rehearsals, Gao said.

If positioning errors, posture recognition deviations, execution sequence failures occur, setting safety distances, equipping emergency stop mechanisms, assigning human supervision and establishing contingency plans to handle unexpected situations, Gao said.  Robot participation in Chiba has become trendy, grabbing the global headlines with robot races and boxing matches between humanoids.

In a recent race featuring robots alongside amateur runners here, a humanoid robot broke the human world record with a timing of 50 minutes, 26 seconds, a record held by Uganda's star distance runner Jacob Kiplimo at the Lisbon Half Marathon in Portugal.

From hotels to hospitals, robots are spotted in almost all top hotels and hospitals in China, taking part in different services.