No, a humanoid has not broken an Olympic record
Robots have beaten two human world records this year. Neither was at the Olympics, and both results come with caveats.
A line going round robotics newsletters this week says humanoids “have already broken humans’ Olympic records”. They have not. What happened is narrower, and more interesting.
What robots did beat
- 100 m in 8.64 s. Tiangong Ultra, at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing in August. Usain Bolt’s world record is 9.58 s.
- A half marathon in 50 min 26 s. A robot from Honor, in Beijing in April, under the human record of about 57 minutes.
Neither was an Olympic event, and no Olympic record is involved.
The caveats
In the half marathon, around 60% of the robots were remote-controlled rather than running on their own. In the sprint, several finishers, the winner included, crashed into the barrier after the line. A record table that does not say whether a robot ran autonomously is missing the most important column.