| schema:text
| - Fact Check: No 'AI Super Soldiers' yet! This robot fighter was created using VFX
A video that has gone viral on social media purports to show a "AI super soldier" training. AFWA's investigation found that the video was created with the help of VFX and the "AI Super Soldier" in it is just an actor.
Listen to Story
India Today Fact Check
This robot in the video was created using VFX. The robot’s stunts were performed by an actor.
Are robotic soldiers a reality now? A video widely shared on social media purportedly shows an “AI super soldier” training. The video features a humanoid robot armed with a gun. The men training the robot appear to manhandle it on several occasions.
A person shared this video writing, “Designing robots capable of independently deciding to use deadly force against a human being should not be legal. I mean if they catch you doing this, you should be locked up for no less than five years. This is more dangerous than 95% of what we lock people up for.”
Another person wrote, “You see where this is going? Those that control the droids will control us. They should be focussing on creating robots to help us advance, not to destroy humans.” Archives of similar posts can be found here, and here.
AFWA found that this video was created with the help of VFX and the “AI Super Soldier” in it is just an actor.
AFWA Probe
A reverse search of keyframes from the viral video led us to the same video shared on Twitter on October 28, 2019. In the responses to the tweet, one person shared a small portion of the clip highlighting the shadow of the robot, which surprisingly did not match its structure. The shadow, appearing to be that of an armed human, can be seen marked in red below.
Further searches led us to an extended version of the viral video shared on Aparat, an Iranian video-sharing platform. This four-minute-long video featured more scenes from the supposed training, along with the viral clip. This video, however, started with an intro clip featuring an Apple computer with “Corridor Digital” written on it.
With the help of this clue, we found the YouTube channel of Corridor Digital, an American production studio based in Los Angeles, known for creating viral online short-form videos. With the help of keywords, we found the same video of the AI robot shared on its YouTube channel in October 2019. The video carried a disclaimer that read, “This video is a comedic parody and is not owned, endorsed, created by, or associated with the Boston Dynamics company.”
Boston Dynamics is an American engineering and robotics design company that was founded in 1992. It has been owned by the Hyundai Motor Group since December 2020.
Further, we found another video shared by Corridor Digital around the same time showing how the video was created using VFX. As it turns out, the “Super Soldier” was nothing but an actor, who was later replaced by a computer-generated robot. At the end of the video, one of the crew members said that it took around two months to create the video.
Moreover, the same channel has created more such VFX videos featuring a similar robot being knocked around by its trainers in a different setting. Earlier, we debunked such VFX creations being mistaken for real incidents, which can be found here, and here.
(Written by Sanjana Saxena)
Please share it on our at 73 7000 7000
You can also send us an email at factcheck@intoday.com
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)