Humanoid robot breaks half-marathon record
A humanoid robot, ‘Lightning,’ shattered the Beijing half-marathon world record this weekend, completing the race in just 50 minutes and 26 seconds, 13 miles faster than any human. Cyber expert Kurt Knutsson warns this massive leap in artificial intelligence, along with Tesla’s Optimus robot, necessitates a universal ‘off button’ and stronger guardrails to ensure safety and prevent future human replacement.
I’m always keeping a very close eye on the state of robotics. I’m equally excited and terrified by it.
On one hand, I’d love to have a robot around the house so it could fold my laundry and make me feel like George Jetson.
On the other hand, I feel like all it would need is one bad day or a bum software update to turn on me and hold me hostage or steal my credit card info.
Security personnel and participants carry a robot on a stretcher after it competed in the Beijing E-Town Half Marathon and Humanoid Robot Half-Marathon on the outskirts of Beijing on April 19, 2026. (Andy Wong/AP)
But that’s quite a way off. Right now, we’re at the “Make robots compete in marathons” phase of development.
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However, not everyone is sticking the landing on this.
China has been really big on robotics, and one broke the human marathon record in Beijing.
Meanwhile, another one had malfunctioned in spectacular fashion.
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As soon as I saw that robot start walking, I knew it was doomed. It just had too much of a dopey walk, and sure enough, as soon as it encountered one of those little plastic speed bump things that you use to hide wires, it went down hard.
But things got wild when the robot started break dancing and bashing itself into a million robotic pieces.
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I’m not going to sit here and pretend to be Isaac Asimov, but I don’t think robots should fall over and then rip themselves to shreds while thrashing on the ground.
That’s just my two cents.
A robot crosses the finish line in the Beijing E-Town Half Marathon and Humanoid Robot Half-Marathon held in the outskirts of Beijing on April 19, 2026. (Andy Wong/AP)
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Also, I like that they have one of those flimsy-looking soccer stretchers that two dudes run in with whenever a player fakes an injury on standby in the event of a robo-mishap.
In this case, I’m not sure how useful the stretcher would be. I guess you could put its twitching legs on the stretcher, but everything else may as well have been swept up and thrown in the robo-dumpster.
