China just gave humanoids a national ID. What could go wrong?

Framed as a way to ensure safety and reliability, China’s plan to issue robots ID numbers feels eerily reminiscent of sci-fi surveillance.

[Illustration: FC, Adobe Stock (robot)]

The Chinese government has launched an official system to assign digital ID cards to all humanoid robots operating in its territory. It may seem surprisingly early, given that most robot deployments at this stage are very limited, but this urgent legislation is driven by a state that knows exactly how fast the technology is accelerating.

Facing a demographic crisis and a shrinking workforce, the legislation follows a Beijing directive designed to aggressively push embodied AI into society “wherever it is needed.” This new state control platform assigns a unique alphanumeric code to each machine, tracking its........

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