BEIJING — It was not even close as a bright red Chinese humanoid named “Lightning” lived up to its name in a half-marathon pitting humans against robots, smoking its competition on Sunday

Moya, a lifelike humanoid robot from China, is fueling debate over AI companionship, biomimetic design, and the future of human-machine relationships.

Their contention is that human space exploration, which they admit has enormous benefits, is simply too expensive and too dangerous. They contend that advances in AI, robotics, and electronics will allow Earth to explore and even commercially exploit other worlds such as the moon and Mars with just machines.