Two robotics stories this week capture the field’s widening gap between spectacle and substance: a viral video of a humanoid robot “attacking” coworkers in an Indonesian office was exposed as a choreographed stunt, while researchers at the University of Basel published work on a miniature dental robot small enough to fit inside a patient’s mouth.
The viral “rogue robot” that wasn’t
A video circulating on social media showed a humanoid robot named “Joko” performing erratic, martial arts-style high kicks and lunging at nearby workers in an Indonesian office. The clip racked up millions of views, with many viewers initially believing they were watching a genuine malfunction.
The reality was more mundane. The robot’s handlers confirmed the movements were pre-programmed as a choreographed routine intended to demonstrate the machine’s agility, balance, and responsiveness. The video was uploaded to TikTok by the operators themselves.
The incident underscores a growing challenge for the robotics industry: as humanoid machines become more capable of lifelike motion, the line between controlled demonstration and genuine safety incident blurs easily in the public eye.
A separate real-world incident last month involving a Unitree G1 robot highlighted the actual risks. During a live demonstration, the robot performed a programmed roundhouse kick while a young child entered its operating area and was struck. The child doubled over but adults intervened quickly. The episode underscored the importance of maintaining safe perimeters around dynamic robot demonstrations.
A cork-sized robot for dentistry
On the other end of the robotics spectrum, a team at the University of Basel’s Department of Biomedical Engineering published a paper in IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics describing a prototype called MIR — the Miniature Intraoral Robot.
Roughly the size of a wine cork (43 by 26 by 28 millimeters, or about 1.7 by 1.0 by 1.1 inches), the robot is designed to prepare teeth for dental crowns autonomously. Its motors and control systems sit outside the patient’s mouth, connected via flexible drive shafts and cables.
The robot works in two stages: a wider bur first reduces the occlusal (chewing) surface of the tooth, and a thinner bur shapes the sides. In laboratory tests on synthetic resin teeth and ceramic material with hardness similar to natural enamel, the robot achieved positional accuracy within 0.2 millimeters (about 0.008 inches), even without onboard sensors.
“A robot that can operate inside the mouth with such precision could transform what is currently a multi-visit procedure into a single appointment,” said Dr Yukiko Tomooka, the paper’s first author.
The patient’s mouth is first scanned to create a digital plan for the crown. A custom dental splint is then produced to hold the robot in place. “Even if the patient turns their head, the MIR moves with them,” Tomooka said.
Future versions are expected to incorporate cameras and sensors for real-time position monitoring, further improving accuracy and allowing the system to recover from interruptions such as power loss.
The gap between hype and engineering
Taken together, the two stories illustrate robotics’ current identity crisis. Viral choreography captures attention but risks distorting public understanding of what the technology can and cannot do. Meanwhile, genuine engineering progress in precision, miniaturization, and autonomy continues largely out of the spotlight.
The MIR project, funded by Innosuisse in collaboration with the Center of Dental Medicine at the University of Zurich, the University of Bern, and Camlog Biotechnologies, is not yet in clinical use. But it represents the kind of incremental, practical robotics work that may ultimately have more impact on everyday life than any viral stunt.
Sources: Video shows humanoid robot acting ‘rogue’, ‘attacking’ coworkers (Interesting Engineering, July 2026); New dental robot attaches to patient’s teeth for drilling (CNET, July 2026); A mini robot to simplify dental treatment (University of Basel, June 2026)