CLAIM: A video shows a real robot beating a human at table tennis.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. A video of two humans playing table tennis at the recent European Championships was digitally altered to replace one competitor with a computer-generated robot. It was created with a platform called Wonder Studio, which uses artificial intelligence to add and animate CGI characters into existing footage, the company confirmed to The Associated Press.
THE FACTS: Social media users are sharing a video claiming to show a sophisticated robot beating a human in a table tennis match.
The footage appears to show a blue-and-white droid in a spirited back-and-forth with its human opponent, before the robot nonchalantly taps the ball over the net in a winning shot.
“Will humans ever beat robots?” reads the text overlaying the video. “Is it only the beginning?”
The clip was shared widely on Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter. One X post had more than 65,000 likes.
However, the video is not footage of an actual robot. It was digitally altered with an AI-powered visual effects tool to replace a human with an animated character.
The original footage showed Slovakian table tennis competitor Yang Wang and Czech player Pavel Sirucek at this year’s European Championships in the Czech Republic on March 22, according to Milica Nikolic, a spokesperson for the European Table Tennis Union.
Clips of the same moment were posted on YouTube at the time, and the ETTU has details about the match on its website.
The altered video replaces Wang with a robot, matching all of his movements. The edited version was first posted to TikTok earlier this month by a user who has shared other videos of animated robots added into real scenes.
The user didn’t return a request for comment, but the blue-and-white robot can be traced back to a platform called Wonder Studio, which allows users to insert computer-generated characters into videos. The robot can be seen on the platform’s website, described as a character “created by artists that can be used in Wonder Studio for free.”
Josiah Chambers, a spokesperson for parent company Wonder Dynamics, confirmed that the video was made by a beta user of its software.
“We can confirm that the video is not real. I think it’s gonna take some time until Robots can move that well,” Chambers said in an email to the AP.
Chambers pointed to a video explaining how the platform uses AI to track an actor’s movements and automatically animates a CGI character into the scene.
While users can upload their own footage and characters, the robot in the table tennis video is a template character from a designer named Aaron Sims, Chambers said.
Chambers added that Wonder Dynamics emphasizes the importance of users making it clear when a video is edited, and said the company doesn’t condone using its technology to mislead people online.
Social media users have misrepresented multiple videos of fake robots as real-life incidents in the past, including a video of a CGI robot attacking a human factory worker.
___
This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
