Update (19 September 2023):
Another video is being shared on social media with a similar claim alleging that the visuals show a robot playing the badminton game with a human. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of a robot playing a badminton game with a human.
Fact: The video shared in the post is a digitally altered one. The original video shows a badminton match between Lin Dan (China) and Lee Chong Wei (Malaysia) during the London 2012 Olympics. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On observing the video carefully, one could see the text “London 2012” and the logo of the Olympics on the banner placed in the indoor stadium. Upon searching for reliable sources using this information on the internet, a video showing similar visuals of a badminton match was found published on the official YouTube channel of the Olympics. The original video shows shows a badminton match between Lin Dan (China) and Lee Chong Wei (Malaysia) during the London 2012 Olympics. From 21:06 minutes of the video, one could see similar visuals as shown in the video shared in the post. The original video does not show a badminton match between a robot and a human.
Published (12 September 2023):
A video is being shared on social media claiming it shows real visuals of a robot playing a badminton game with humans. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of a robot playing badminton game with humans.
Fact: The post shared a digitally altered robot video created using the AI technology. The original video shows two children playing with a man. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
On reverse image search of the screenshots of the video, a video showing similar visuals was found published by a Facebook page named Phalore Badminton Club in October 2021. The original video depicts two children playing badminton alongside a man, rather than competing against a robot.
A TikTok handle named ‘magicalmagicworld’ posted this video of Robot playing badminton with humans and mentioned it as an AI-generated video. This TikTok handle shared a series of videos showing similar visuals of robots playing different games with humans. A few of those videos can be seen here, here, and here.
When we searched for further sources, we found similar videos of robots playing badminton with humans. Social media users who posted these videos stated that they are videos generated using artificial intelligence. Though we could not ascertain the details of the original creator of the video shared in the post, from all these pieces of evidence, it can be concluded that the video shared in the post is a digitally altered robot video.
However, there are real videos of robots playing badminton matches alongside humans. A few of those videos can be seen here, here, and here.
Earlier, when a similar digitally created video was shared as the visuals of a robot playing table tennis alongside a human, Factly published a fact-check article debunking that claim.
To sum it up, a digitally created video was shared as the visuals of a robot playing badminton with humans.
