The increasingly theatrical world of humanoid robotics just got a touch more dramatic. Figure CEO Brett Adcock, a man who clearly doesn’t believe in whispering sweet nothings, has publicly accused Chinese rival UBTECH Robotics Corp Ltd of a rather audacious bit of digital trickery. His bombshell? That UBTECH’s glossy promotional video, showing rows upon rows of its Walker S2 humanoids supposedly rolling off the production line, is a cleverly faked illusion, with only the robot closest to the camera being the real deal.
Adcock’s entire argument, a rather Sherlockian deduction, hinges on what might seem like a mere trifle: the reflections – or conspicuous lack thereof – on the robots’ heads. Taking to X (formerly Twitter, for those still catching up), he declared, “Look at the reflections on this bot, then compare them to the ones behind it… If you see a head unit reflecting a bunch of ceiling lights, that’s a giveaway it’s CGI.” The accompanying visual, helpfully provided, zooms in on these rather shiny craniums, pointedly highlighting the stark absence of detailed reflections on the background models. If this digital conjuring trick proves to be true, it would be a rather audacious gambit from UBTECH, a company that recently announced it had bagged over 800 million yuan (a tidy sum of about £88 million GBP) in orders for its Walker S2 model this year. Talk about high stakes for a bit of pixelated polish.
This rather pointed accusation lands just as UBTECH has been on a full-throttle promotional blitz, proudly proclaiming it has achieved the “world’s first mass delivery of humanoid robots.” The company, which incidentally holds the distinction of being the first humanoid robotics firm to float on the Hong Kong stock exchange, has been busy trumpeting a string of major contracts stretching into 2025, with an ambitious target of delivering over 500 industrial robots this year. As of writing, UBTECH has, perhaps wisely, gone radio silent on these rather damning CGI allegations. However, this kerfuffle undeniably highlights the fierce, high-stakes skirmish for public perception that’s currently gripping the robotics industry.
So, why’s this all a bit of a big deal, then?
In the eye-wateringly expensive, capital-intensive scramble to churn out and deploy humanoid robots, proving you can actually make them at scale is every bit as vital as showing off their clever technical wizardry. While slick, cinematic videos are undeniably standard marketing boilerplate, getting slapped with accusations of faking your production capabilities can utterly shred investor and customer trust. This rather public dressing-down by a direct rival vividly underscores the immense pressure on these firms to project an image of breakneck progress. So, whether UBTECH’s video turns out to be a brilliantly executed marketing visualisation or, indeed, a rather dodgy digital deception, this whole kerfuffle has certainly thrown a spotlight on the latest, and perhaps most critical, battlefield for robotics companies: good old authenticity.
