Indian professor's robot dog claim at AI summit sparks uproar

New Delhi: An Indian professor has sparked ridicule after falsely suggesting a Chinese-made robot dog displayed at a major AI summit in New Delhi was developed by her university.

The silver mechanical dog -- a model sold by Chinese startup Unitree -- appeared at a booth run by the private Galgotias University at this week's AI Impact Summit.

Following online uproar over the professor's claim in a televised interview on Tuesday, Galgotias said that while it did not build the machine, "what we are building are minds that will soon design, engineer, and manufacture such technologies."

“You need to meet Orion,” the professor, Neha Singh, told an Indian TV reporter as the dog performed tricks such as waving at the camera and springing up on its hind legs.

“This has been developed by the centers of excellence at the Galgotias University,” Singh said, touting the institution’s investments in artificial intelligence technology.

“As you can see, it can take all shapes and sizes... it's quite naughty too,” she said.

In a statement posted on social media platform

The "recently acquired" Unitree robodog is a "classroom in motion" and "our students are experimenting with it, testing its limits", it said.

Under fire for her comments, Singh told reporters on Wednesday that "things may not have been clearly expressed."

“I did not communicate it properly,” said Singh, a professor of communications.

Galgotias student Vaidik Mishra said the controversy was uncalled for.

"We were so hopeful that this summit will give us a platform to talk about our start-up. But now it is all about us lying about the robot, which is not even true. It was just a misunderstanding," he told AFP.

India's opposition Congress party used the incident to attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is hosting nearly 20 world leaders and dozens more national delegations at the five-day summit.

“The Modi government has made a laughing stock of India globally, with regard to AI. In the current AI summit, Chinese robots are being displayed as our own,” the party wrote in a post on X.

“This is truly embarrassing for India,” it added, calling the incident “brazenly shameless.”

The TV reporter who had conducted the interview, Tapas Bhattachary, urged viewers to take a broader perspective.

“If one out of hundreds of exhibitors wasn't being upfront about their innovation, I would not give up on the entire India's youth who are very innovative,” Bhattachary said.