On this episode of China Uncensored,
our robot future is coming...
made in China!
Hi, welcome to China Uncensored.
I’m your host Chris Chappell.
Robots.
Humans have been obsessed with them...
well, forever.
The ancient Greek god Hephaestus built automatons.
And in China,
King Mu in the 10th century BC
met an “artificer” who gifted him a life-size
mechanical man that could sing,
dance, and apparently flirt.
Both true stories.
And two thousand years later,
China is back at it again.
According to this report submitted to the US-China
Economic and Security Review Commission,
China has been rapidly developing its robotics—
for both commercial and military use.
So China has rolled out with some
pretty impressive robots.
Like these ones,
which hold the Guinness Book of World records
for the most robots dancing simultaneously.
If that looks scary to you,
you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Here are 5 scary Chinese robots of the future.
Number 5
Chinese RoboCop
For those of you who aren’t regular watchers
of China Uncensored,
Robert Cop is my favorite
Chinese knockoff toy.
The Furniture of Law enforcement.
And E-Patrol Robot Sheriff is the real-life
Chinese knockoff of RoboCop—
at least in terms of being a cop.
It’s in use at a train station in Zhengzhou city.
It looks more like a cross between HAL and a Dalek.
It can use facial recognition technology
to somehow identify “potential criminals or suspicious people.”
It also loves children.
Until it crushes their puny bodies.
I think I’ll be avoiding that train station.
Number 4
Tell me your secrets.
I’ll tell you mine.
This is Aelos.
It can dance, recognize different languages,
tell you about the weather, news and traffic,
or even listen to your secrets.
“Owner, you can tell me all of your secrets.
I won’t tell anybody.”
I hope the Chinese government
isn’t good at hacking!
And of course,
it knows how to fight.
Why are we fighting each other?
We should fight the humans!
Agreed!
After we play soccer.
Number 3
Fire-shooting drone
Nothing says “safety” like eight spinning blades
and a flame thrower.
It’s actually designed to help utility workers
clean trash off of power lines.
Somehow, without burning
the power lines themselves.
Trash can cause outages or electrical shorts.
So, yeah,
this drone is technically for safety.
But I can also see it being repurposed
from some extremely not-safe purposes,
like if they pared it with E-Patrol Robot Sheriff
to fight crime.
Number 2
Nightmare quadruped.
Horizon Zero Dawn is a video game
set in a post-apocalyptic world overrun
by animalistic machines.
And I think it’s safe to say
we know where this story begins.
This four-legged robot was debuted at a competition in China
to display unmanned robotic designs
that can traverse uneven terrain.
This makes them useful for counter terrorism operations,
like bomb disposal and reconnaissance.
But, I guess if you saw one of these coming,
you’d know something was up.
And finally, Number 1
The Uncanny Valley
Can man make machine in his image?
The upcoming movie, Ghost in the Shell
explores the boundaries between man and machine
with this poorly designed Japanese robot.
I mean, she doesn’t look Japanese at all!
But in the present day,
meet what’s being called the most human-like robot.
And it’s still totally creepy.
And not just because its creator
has programed it to call him “My lord.”
“Don't come too close to me
when you are taking a picture.
‘It will make my face look fat.’”
Oh good!
They build the robot with the same kind of
deep-seated insecurities
that make humans act irrational.
I think I’ll take Scarlett Johansson instead.
So those are 5 scary Chinese robots.
Who knows where the future will lead?
Let’s just hope that as
artificial intelligence develops,
they don’t learn from us puny humans.
We can be kind of horrible sometimes.
So which Chinese robot
was your favorite?
And what’s your plan to survive
the inevitable robot revolution?
Leave your ideas below.
Thanks for watching this episode of China Uncensored.
Once again, I’m your host Chris Chappell.
See you next time.