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Some media users have been sharing videos that they claim are proof that China has started training humanoid robot soldiers. It turns out, however, that these videos were – surprise surprise – created by AI.
By: The FRANCE 24 Observers / Quang Pham This video of robot soldiers, published on February 19, 2026, was actually created by AI. © X Have Chinese dancing robots been turned into killing machines? People were amazed when Chinese television broadcast Lunar New Year celebrations featuring a dance routine carried out by a bunch of G1 humanoid robots, the flagship humanoid robots created by Chinese robotics firm Unitree Robotics. However, two videos that have been circulating on social media since February 19 show a much less peaceful use for G1 robots. The videos show the robots taking part in what appears to be military training, armed with assault rifles. It turns out, however, that these videos are fake.
The first video, which garnered more than 1.9 million views on X (check it out here and here), was said to show "Terminator" robots (as a social media user dubbed them) carrying out military manoeuvres at a shooting range. The video shows G1 robots – easy to identify because of the neon blue on their face – carrying out an operation using assault rifles.
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However, as Tal Hagin, a researcher who studies disinformation, points out, there are a number of anomalies in this video that show it was generated by artificial intelligence.
Eleven seconds in, you can see that the ejection port cover on the robot’s assault rifle remains closed even when the weapon is being fired. This cover, which protects the ejector from humidity and dust, must open when bullets are being fired so that cartridge cases can be ejected. In the video, the cover remains closed or blinks but doesn’t eject any cartridge cases.
Above, you can see the ejection port cover on the robot’s assault rifle (red). It remains closed even when a bullet is fired (green). Below is a real example of the cover opening when a shot is fired. © X Another anomaly appears at 27 seconds when a magazine suddenly appears in the robot’s hand out of the blue when he is reloading his weapon.
Twenty-seven seconds into the video, the robot suddenly has a magazine in his hand. © X An obstacle course… where the obstacles appear by magic Another robot soldier video, which garnered more than a million views on X, is perhaps even more spectacular. It shows G1 robots participating in a training obstacle course. This video seems particularly realistic and doesn’t have any of the visual anomalies that often pop up in AI-generated videos, like objects or body parts appearing deformed or distorted.
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However, this video, too, was generated by AI. To detect the anomalies, you need to compare each scene in the video with the one before it. Around 32 seconds in, for example, a robot dog leaps over a wooden panel in front of a pile of sandbags. However, this panel wasn’t anywhere to be seen at 30 seconds, which is a wider lens view of the same pile of sandbags. The AI magicked this object into being.
The image below shows the robot dog jumping over a wooden panel around 32 seconds into the video. However, there was no sign of this wooden panel in the previous scene (around 30 seconds in). © X Videos from an account belonging to a creator of AI-generated images Where are these videos from? It’s possible to find their creator by looking at the watermark on the training videos. They were made by a user who goes by "oukanghong" on the Chinese online video site Bilibili (here and here). Oukanghong user seems to specialise in creating AI-generated videos of robots.
The video of the robots making their way through an obstacle course has a note on it indicating that the video was made using artificial intelligence.
The original video of the robots completing an obstacle course that was posted on February 18, 2026 on Bilibili. © oukanghong In one of the comments, oukanghong complains about seeing his videos taken out of context:
"People have been sharing my video while inventing rumours and using it out of context to spread false information.”
This article has been translated from the original in French by Brenna Daldorph.
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