Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
Claim
A humanoid robot gets the better of a human opponent during a table tennis rally.
Fact
Video made by digitally altering a clip of an actual table tennis rally involving two human players.
Several social media users are circulating a video of what appears to be a humanoid robot involved in an extended table tennis rally with a human athlete, ultimately winning it, evoking reactions of incredulity at the ease with which the robot managed the point.
The archived versions of the tweets can be seen here and here.
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Fact Check
Newschecker noticed the match in the video seemed to be held in a professional setting, so we ran a keyword search for “Robot table tennis match”, which did not lead us to any credible news reports or videos of such an encounter.
We then ran a relevant keyword search on Twitter, which led us to a Youtube video, dated March 24, 2023, titled “Absolutely Insane Table Tennis Defense from Yang Wang”.
A comparison of the two videos, especially the last shot of the rally from Yang Wang, indicates that it has been digitally altered by overlaying a CGI humanoid robot onto Wang, a Slovak table tennis player of Chinese origin.
Another version of the rally can be seen here, confirming that it is the same video that has been edited.
Conclusion
A video of a table tennis rally between two players has been digitally manipulated to make it look like a humanoid robot is playing.
Result: Altered media
Sources
Image analysis
Youtube video, Jan Valenta Table Tennis, March 24, 2023
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Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
