Watch out for the robo-bop.
Appalling footage shows the moment that a robot accidentally slapped a child in the face during a dance demonstration gone awry.
The “hit” routine went down on March 21 in Shaanxi province, China, where the humanoid automaton was showing off its moves, Jam Press reported.
The clip starts off innocently enough with the dance droid performing twirls and kicks in a cordoned-off ring as spectators look on in amazement.
Things take a turn when the robot starts to pirouette towards the crowd with its arms extended and ends up smacking a young boy in the face.
The handlers drag the malfunctioning machine away, but it continues to groove in the center of the ring.
Online spectators were flabbergasted over the encounter, with one commenting, “What a dangerous performance.”
“The child anticipated it, but there was no way out,” said another, while a third wrote, “It really hurts to be hit by metal.”
“Humanoid robot casually punching a kid… yeah, we’re still far from everyday uncontrolled usage,” observed one critic on X.
Others joked that this heralded the beginning of a robo-revolution. “Robot uprising also starts small, maybe a slap here, a kick there. All to desensitize humans,” quipped one wit on X.
The robot appears to be a G1 humanoid by the Chinese tech firm Unitree Robotics, which devised this 77-pound machine for research, education and commercial applications.
Boasting a starting price of around $13,500, the automaton is at the cutting-edge of locomotion, sporting advanced sensors and 23 degrees of freedom in its joints that allow it to navigate obstacles, dance, and even manipulate objects with its hands.
The robotronic doppelganger has also been known to go rogue on occasion, raising the question of whether it’s necessary to install stronger safeguards before making these bots commercially available.
Earlier this year, a Unitree robot accidentally kicked its human handler in the groin while mimicking its movements.
Meanwhile, earlier this month, another prototype from the firm was “detained” by cops in Macau for scaring an elderly woman so badly she had to be hospitalized.
In the wild clip, the bot was seen raising both arms as he was scolded by the senior.
“You’re making my heart race!” she raged in Cantonese. “You’ve got plenty to do, so what’s the point of messing around with this? Are you freaking crazy?”
