Fact Check: Viral Video Of Robot Playing Badminton With Humans Is Edited
Vishvas News found in its investigation that the viral video of a robot playing badminton with humans was edited.
- By Vishvas News
- Updated: September 20, 2023
New Delhi, Vishvas News – A video circulating on social media shows a robot playing a badminton match against two human players. The accompanying caption claims that it was a real video where a robot was competing against humans.
Vishvas News conducted a thorough investigation and found that this claim is, in fact, false. The video is edited. The original footage featured a human in place of the robot.
What Does the Viral Video Show?
The viral video was shared by a Facebook handle named Asr Sports Academy, with the caption, “Unbelievable Showdown: Robot vs. Human in Badminton. Witness the future of sports right here. This epic badminton rally between a cutting-edge robot and a human player is mind-blowing. Video Credits: Huge shoutout to the amazing @BadmintonEnthusiast for sharing this mind-blowing rally. #asr #asrbadminton #asrbadmintonacademy #robot #badminton #humanvsrobot”
You can view the archived post here.
Investigation:
In our investigation, we carefully checked the video and observed that in several places, the badminton racket handle suddenly became invisible from the robot’s hand. This strongly indicated that the video could be edited.
Acting on this clue, we extracted the portion of the video that did not feature the robot and conducted a Google reverse image search. We found this video uploaded on a Facebook page called ‘Phalore bedmation club’ on October 21, 2021. The video clearly shows that the match involved three human players, with no robot in sight.
For more insights, we talked to Sanjay Gemini, a motion graphics designer at Jagran New Media. He pointed out that there were visible graphics merging in several parts of the video, along with discrepancies between the badminton racket handle and the robot’s hand in various frames. According to him, this video is not authentic.
Additionally, we conducted an open search to identify the most advanced robots. Although we found a list of the top five advanced humanoid robots on the website of Analytics Insight, none of them were capable of playing badminton like humans.
The viral video was shared by a Facebook page named ‘ASR Sports Academy’, which has more than 1,000 followers.
Conclusion: Vishvas News found in its investigation that the viral video of a robot playing badminton with humans was edited.