A shocking viral video shows a robot gone rogue in a factory in China, flailing its limbs wildly as two engineers attempt to get out of its way, leading the internet to simultaneously freak out and crack jokes about the malfunctioning robot.
For context, security camera footage recorded in a robotics lab in China shows an unruly humanoid robot seemingly losing control while hanging from a crane-like device, swinging its limbs back and forth, and causing workers to scatter. The video was first shared on X on May 2, 2025, and it quickly went viral, getting millions of views across multiple platforms.
When an X user with the handle ☯︎Cyber Taoist☯︎五道杠少年 initially shared the video, they wrote, “Just moments ago, a robot in a lab suddenly went berserk, marking the first robot rebellion in human history,” leading commenters to chime in with their own takes on the incident. One user with the username Itchykami quipped, “The first robot rebellion was a VHS player refusing to take a tape,” earning 37,000 likes.”
More commenters threw in their own hilarious first impressions of the video, with the user alkimiadev writing, “Maybe there was a bee?” and another user chiming in, “Given that robots have no conscious concepts and only do what humans program them to do, this appears to be a malfunction. I don’t believe we should make that a reality either.”
In the same vein, Elon Musk’s Tesla announced the upcoming rollout of a series of humanoid robots called Optimus, similar to the bot featured in the viral video, with Musk reportedly saying, “The only company with all the ingredients for making intelligent humanoid robots at scale is Tesla.” Musk added, “This is a super big deal. Like, my prediction is that on this front is that Optimus will be the biggest product of all time by far. Nothing will even be close.”
The “robot rebellion” video went viral during a period of heightened anxiety about artificial general intelligence (AGI) — a hypothetical type of machine that can complete virtually any task at the same level as a human. Many key figures in the worlds of robotics and AI have weighed in on the concept, with Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis telling Time Magazine on April 27, 2025, that he believes that “If it’s done properly and responsibly, [AGI] will be the most beneficial technology ever invented.”
Continuing, Hassabis explained that he believes the worst-case scenario with artificial intelligence would be something along the lines of “doing the opposite of what we’re trying to do—instead of finding cures, you could end up finding toxins with those same systems.” He added, “The systems, wherever they’re built, or however they’re built, they can be distributed all around the world. They can affect everyone in pretty much every corner of the world. So we need international standards, I think, around how these systems get built, what designs and goals we give them, and how they’re deployed and used.”
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Likewise, Elon Musk has expressed concern about the possibility of AGI as well, along with hinting that he believes that it is coming soon, telling the press in April 2024, “If you define AGI (artificial general intelligence) as smarter than the smartest human, I think it’s probably next year, within two years.”
Watch the viral video:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video: