Indian University Plagiarizes Robot Dog

Earlier this month, the Indian government held the AI Impact Summit, a high-level event designed to showcase the country’s progress in the artificial intelligence space and to serve as a platform for researchers and universities to showcase their latest creations.

Unfortunately, for nearly all involved, the biggest headline to come from the event wasn’t about a breakthrough technology or amazing application; it was about how one university plagiarized a robot dog.

According to a report by Rajesh Roy for the Associated Press, Galgotias University was ordered to tear down its stand at the summit after visitors recognized the school’s robot dog as an off-the-shelf Unitree Go2, manufactured and sold in China. 

The dog, which starts at $1,600 plus shipping, was not made by the university or its students. 

The school’s professor of communications, Neha Singh, had initially told local media that the dog, named Orion, was developed by the university’s Centre of Excellence. However, she later backtracked on that statement, saying that her remarks were misunderstood and she never explicitly claimed the dog was the university’s creation, only that it was an exhibit. 

However, the university later backtracked even further, saying that Singh was not authorized to speak on behalf of the school and was “ill-informed.” The school went on to say that the bad press was a “propaganda campaign” that could harm both students and the school.

The summit ordered the school to pack up their booth, eventually shutting off power to it.

India’s IT Secretary S Krishnan hoped that the incident would not “overshadow” the work of others at the event. However, it’s a bit late for that. The incident is not only an embarrassment for the school and the summit, but the country and AI more broadly.

The NFT Gambit

Ever since the public launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, AI has become a lightning rod for controversy.

From concerns over environmental impacts, fears of job replacement, frustration with unwanted AI features, errors, and anger from human artists whose work was used to train such systems, AI has a serious trust problem.

Out of all those issues, a university plagiarizing a robot dog would seem to be a minor, perhaps even humorous, story. And, in many ways, it is.  

But we’ve seen a similar pattern before. Back during late 2021 and into 2022, we were experiencing the halcyon days of NFTs. They were a promised revolution in art, contracts, copyright and more.

That didn’t pan out. The NFT market has completely crashed. All those NFTs sold for eye-watering amounts are now all but worthless. 

To be clear, NFTs faced many of the same criticisms that AI faces today. Concerns about the environmental impacts of blockchain, economic disruptions, creators having their work used without permission, etc. However, NFTs sparked a gold rush and that attracted the plagiarists. 

That’s the problem with a gold rush: they tend to reward those who get there first, not necessarily who does it the best or the most ethically.

For those who don’t care about ethics, plagiarism is one of the most effective shortcuts you can take. Writing a whitepaper takes time. Why not just copy someone else’s? Coding a blockchain app takes work. Why not just plagiarize another company? Building and training an AI dog is difficult. Why not just pass off a Chinese-manufactured robot as your own?

If the sole goal is to get there first, some will always choose to take the path of least resistance. That’s what this university did, and it risks far more than its own reputation.

There Goes the Neighborhood

As an AI skeptic, I find it difficult to put myself in the mindset of an AI supporter. But if I were an AI supporter, especially one in India, I would be very worried about this story.

Though AI has been repeatedly described as a grift without plagiarism issues, when the plagiarists show up to the party, especially at the highest levels, it’s usually time to head for an exit.

To be clear, this isn’t the first story of a fake AI robot. In October 2024, Tesla debuted its new humanoid robot but revealed that it was human-operated. Earlier this month, Weave Robotics had a similar revelation with its clothes-folding robot. 

But this latest story takes it to a new level, passing off an off-the-shelf product as an AI innovation. This isn’t about what AI is or is not capable of today. It’s about direct dishonesty and passing off others’ work as your own. The shortcuts are getting shorter. 

And yes, I do think it is plagiarism. Even if I were to accept that they never directly claimed it was their work, they were still presenting it at a summit intended for people to show off their new and original AI creations. As I wrote earlier, audience expectations are king when it comes to plagiarism, and this audience clearly expected original work.

With trust in AI already on shaky ground (at best), the industry can’t afford this escalation of unethical behavior, especially on such a public stage. 

While this may, in the big picture, be a minor story, it’s easy ammunition for AI’s biggest critics and yet another narrative about AI’s negative aspects.

Bottom Line

To be clear, I don’t think AI is heading toward the kind of spectacular flameout that NFTs went through, and Bitcoin may be in the middle of now. These are very different markets with different forces pushing and pulling on them.

However, there’s not much doubt that we are in the “gold rush” phase of AI. Unfortunately, it’s never a good sign for a gold rush when the fraudsters start showing up, especially when they show up so boldly.

While many will argue that AI is already a grift, now the AI grifters are grifting other AI companies. We saw some of this a year ago with the launch of DeepSeek, which was accused of “plagiarizing” OpenAI. We’ve also seen this more recently with Google saying that it’s been dealing with similar “distillation attacks” on Gemini.

While those stories are much more important in the bigger picture, it’s the brazenness of the robot dog story that’s turning heads. There was a zero-effort lie that was incredibly easy to catch. The fact that they thought they could get away with it speaks poorly of both the school and how they feel about the AI community broadly.

Though the summit responded appropriately, it doesn’t change the fact that they got in the door. This type of plagiarism is likely to become more common and more brazen moving forward. 

That is the real takeaway here, not that a university plagiarized a robot dog, but that it’s likely a harbinger of the fraud to come.