The closest thing to C-3PO can be yours – if you have $16,000

Unitree G1 humanoid robot has speed, agility, and a slightly haunting faceless head – and it can be yours for $16,000.

The G1 is the more polished and accomplished follow-up to Unitree’s H1 humanoid, a robot I saw doddering around like an old man at CES 2024. That bot walked slowly but remained upright even when Unitree developers delivered a kick to its stiff back. G1, by contrast, is more flexible and faster than its predecessor. It might even be able to run away from that kick.

In a recently released YouTube video (below), G1 gets up from a prone position, walks, runs, climbs stairs, and handles getting punched and kicked. It then settles onto a couch, rotates its arms and legs 360 degrees, and folds its 77-pound, 4-ft. tall body into a small, carryable size (a developer does come along and hoists G1 over his head). It even engages in a bit of krav maga stick work, which I believe demonstrates how it uses imitation and reinforcement training to learn new skills.

While Unitree G1 has LiDAR scanners built into its head, it lacks a face. It also doesn’t ship with hands, but you can purchase a pair of three-fingered dextrous hands that can be used, at least according to the video and Unitree website, to crack walnuts, forcefully open a bottle of Coke, cook, and delicately solder electronics.