China's Staged Tech Illusions Exposed: Robot Races Fail, AI Hype Unravels

"Each exposure of fakery or malfunction damages China's credibility, reinforcing doubts about its actual progress in robotics and AI," according to the report in Khabarhub.

The report further said that this credibility crisis has broader implications.

"China's efforts to project dominance in robotics and artificial intelligence have repeatedly unravelled, with staged spectacles, malfunctioning machines, and even human actors disguised as robots undermining its credibility," it claimed.

In April 2024, China hosted the world's first half marathon featuring humanoid robots alongside human runners.

"The event was intended to showcase endurance and technical sophistication. Instead, it became a spectacle of failure. Out of 20 robot participants, most stumbled, fell, or froze at the starting line. Some even lost their heads mid-race, requiring human handlers to prop them up," said the report.

It further said that China's repeated failures in robotics and AI highlight the dangers of prioritising propaganda over progress.

In August last year, a video of armed Chinese robots marching in formation went viral.

Initially hailed by nationalistic audiences as proof of China's military robotics capabilities, the footage was later exposed as AI-generated. Fact-checkers confirmed that no such prototypes existed, and the video was a digital fabrication, the report said.

This credibility crisis has broader implications. In the global tech race, trust is as important as innovation.

Notably, the reliance on propaganda undermines genuine researchers within China who are striving for real progress but find their work overshadowed by exaggerated spectacles, said the report.

However, China continues to promote breakthroughs in AI. China's open-source large language model (LLM) DeepSeek has been touted as a "dark horse" in the global tech race.

- IANS