New Delhi: After a Chinese-manufactured robotic dog displayed at the India AI Impact Summit in Delhi sparked online backlash for claiming to be made by a private university in Uttar Pradesh’s Noida, the professor, on Wednesday, February 18, said her words were interpreted wrongly.
Galgotias University’s Prof Neha Singh said her comments were made in the heat of the moment.
Speaking to Hindustan Times at the expo, Prof Singh said the controversy originated from a hurried conversation and “euphoria” at the event. There was no intention to claim ownership of the robodog, she said.
The university also apologised for the “confusion,” saying the representative was “ill-informed.”
Singh clarified that her remarks were poorly articulated, expressing regret over how they were perceived by the public. “I could have been more eloquent. I could have been more articulate. Because of the euphoria and rush, things went a little hither-thither, which was never the intention. The branding has not been changed,” said Prof Singh.
The controversy
The controversy erupted after Singh, a professor of communications at the University, on Tuesday, February 17, showed DD News a robotic dog named Orion, saying it “has been developed by the Centre of Excellence at Galgotias University.”
After the video, social media users highlighted that the robot was actually a Unitree Go2, manufactured by China’s Unitree Robotics and commonly used in research and education worldwide.
Following the controversy, the university’s stall was asked to vacate, with I-T Secretary S Krishnan saying the government does not want any exhibitor to showcase items that are not their own.
Orion part of university’s AI investments for students
In the interview with HT, however, Prof Singh said that the robodog was procured as part of the AI investments of the university. It was for the students to have a hands-on learning platform and it was not a university-made invention, she said.
“We cannot own something which is not curated by us, by our students. That is not our legacy and value system as an academic institution,” she said. “There was nothing clandestinely done.”
When asked to explain the usage of the word “developed,” she said it referred to how students would study and build innovations using the technology.
“We expose them to cutting-edge technologies. They study, experiment, innovate and develop something out of it,” she said.
Prof Singh also said the clarification was not a response to the online backlash. “If this had not been noticed by people, we would still have clarified. We cannot claim something that is not built by our students,” she said.
She described the controversy as an interpretation issue, saying, “You’re maintaining your six, somebody else’s nine, that’s what happened.”
The robodog, meanwhile, was moved back to the university labs for students’ use. “It was procured to be in the labs for the students to do all the anatomy, all the research and development. It is there,” she said.
