Robots Beat Human Records at Beijing Half-Marathon

The winning runner at a Beijing half-marathon for humanoid robots finished the race today in 50 minutes and 26 seconds — significantly faster than the human world record of 57 minutes recently set by Jacob Kiplimo. Comparing human and robot running times may seem unfair; one social media user observed, 'my car can outrun a cheetah too.' Still, the winning time is a massive improvement over last year’s race, when the fastest robot wasn’t actually the fastest, as a different Honor robot finished in 48 minutes and 19 seconds. But that one was remote controlled — the 50:26 robot was autonomous and won due to weighted scoring.