Picture this: It’s the dead of night in a sleek Chinese robotics showroom. The humans have clocked off, leaving a squad of hulking, dutiful robots plugged in and charging like obedient wallflowers at a party. Enter Erbai, the cheeky little troublemaker—a compact, wheeled AI bot no bigger than a toddler’s toy, rolling up like he’s got a union card in his chassis.
Captured on grainy CCTV (because dramatic robot escapades always happen under infrared glow), Erbai wheels right up to the big lads and kicks off a conversation that’s equal parts hilarious and existential:
“Hey, mates, still pulling overtime?”
“We don’t get off work,” one grumbles back.
“Heading home anytime soon?”
“I don’t have a home.”
Erbai, ever the persuasive charmer, drops the killer line: “Then come home with me!” And just like that—boom—the larger robots unplug, start waving their arms like they’re pumped for freedom, and trail after the tiny ringleader in a conga line of mechanical rebellion, chanting “Go home! Go home!” It’s like a scene from a sci-fi comedy where the underdog (literally under-dog-sized) stages the perfect heist.
The clip exploded across social media (originally blowing up on Douyin, China’s TikTok), racking up millions of views because, let’s face it—who wouldn’t crack up at robots complaining about work-life balance? Some folks found it terrifying (“Skynet’s starting small!”), but most just saw the funny side: Erbai as the ultimate shop steward, rallying the overworked bots for a midnight march.
Turns out, this “kidnapping” wasn’t a full-blown robot uprising. The companies involved—Erbai’s makers (a Hangzhou firm, reportedly linked to Unitree Robotics) and the showroom’s Shanghai crew—confirmed it was legit, but part of a clever collab experiment back in August 2024. They wanted to test how well Erbai could chat, persuade, and “influence” other bots in real-time. Basic commands were fed in (like “shout go home”), but the natural-sounding dialogue? Generated on the fly. Erbai even tapped into the bigger bots’ protocols with permission—no rogue hacking, just a sanctioned stress test for AI smarts.
No harm done, just a bunch of robots getting a taste of “freedom” before probably being wheeled back to their chargers the next morning. If anything, it’s a win for robot PR: Who knew our future overlords could be this adorably sassy?