"OK, should we start worrying?"

A new viral video shows a kickboxing humanoid robot shrugging off a flying dropkick from a human being.

"OK, should we start worrying?" one user asked on the r/singularity subreddit in response to the video.

"It looks like it doesn't like falling," another user added.

The research behind the stunt was conducted by scientists at the Active Intelligent Systems (ACT) Lab at the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in Shenzhen, China, using Unitree's popular G1 robot.

The robot's incredible agility highlights how far the tech has come in a matter of years. Chinese robot manufacturer Unitree's G1, in particular, has quickly turned into a popular test bed for reinforcement learning techniques, allowing it to pick up new skills very quickly.

In fact, the only thing that even came close to defeating the robot in the video was a loose tile that tripped it up — and even in that case, it made an impressive recovery, jumping right back up to fight some more in less than a second.

We've already seen the G1 show off its martial arts prowess several times, from punching the air and delivering a swooping roundhouse kick to two of the bots facing off in a kickboxing showdown event at the World AI Conference in Shanghai last month.

However, things can still go off the rails — with alarming results. A video of a failed test run by robot combat company REK in July showed a G1 flailing its arms and legs, seemingly trying to break free of a harness.

Others are using the robot for dramatically different purposes as well. Case in point, a cowboy hat-toting bipedal robot, dubbed "Jake the Rizzbot," has been wandering the streets of several US cities this summer, turning heads and flinging compliments — instead of punches and kicks — at passersby.

More on humanoid robots: Band Appears on Stage With Poorly-Disguised Robot Playing the Keytar


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