Robots Run Beijing's First Half Marathon and Tweeps Worry About the Upcoming Robot Army

justmindy | 12:30 AM on April 20, 2025

This is terrifying. Why are we training robots to do this?

This morning,The world's first robot half marathon race was held in Beijing. 20 robots participated, and the champion score was 2 hours and 40 room minutes, approximately 21 km.😃 pic.twitter.com/CiJvuNHpp9
— Sharing Travel (@TripInChina) April 19, 2025

The ones with skin are so life like. https://t.co/7fOjxuprnn
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) April 20, 2025

Now, now ...those are just the humans training them how to defeat humans one day. Those are traitors. Heh.

I’m sorry but I feel like it’s not a good idea to teach robots how to run fast. https://t.co/TuMBkMwUrQ
— NotAnExpert (@ClaireS___) April 20, 2025

Do not feel sorry for feeling that way. That is a perfectly rational feeling to have.

The rest of the world is moving ahead either with or without us. We can put up barriers and tariffs. But in the end if we don’t engage with the world, it will only really hurting us. https://t.co/P36L3DbyrK
— GadgetNate (CountdownToTheMoon.org) (@GadgetNate) April 19, 2025

At minimum, we better be ready to beat a robot army.

But it identifies as a human. https://t.co/cbFQ1qtv9s
— Peter Boghossian (@peterboghossian) April 19, 2025

Here we go!

Surprised that it was so slow... The current world record for the men's half marathon is 56:42, set by Jacob Kiplimo of Uganda on February 16, 2025, in Barcelona, Spain https://t.co/Q4J9kmCRrj
— Suresh Nirody - snirody.eth (@snirody) April 19, 2025

I know this may seem dystopian at first but I think it's kind of cool for those that are training. Imagine being able to put your PR into an app and this robot is able to replicate that PR such that you can constantly try to compete against it as if it was a human. https://t.co/NETxlw3k8j
— ScottLabs (@ScottLabs) April 19, 2025

We don't really need that, do we?

We have no one to blame but ourselves when the robots take over. https://t.co/C6oVSmbp9h
— Charlie Sokaitis (@CharlieSokaitis) April 19, 2025

Ok, that's impressive uptime assuming it didn't have to recharge. Last I checked to Boston robot dog was 90 min https://t.co/pXZMwGNsKm
— Gordon Wells (@gordonwells) April 19, 2025

So, when the robots try to take over, all we have to do is try to avoid them for 90 minutes and then they'll run out of power. That is sort of comforting.

How long before we are having a flutter on the robot 🐎🏇horses? Or puttting up robot jockeys? https://t.co/ZEaw7vQfls
— Davy Lane (@LosCharruas) April 19, 2025