Shaquille O’Neal told Gizmodo he would play basketball against an AI-powered humanoid robot, after watching footage of machines dunking and shooting three-pointers. The challenge sounds entertaining until you look at what today’s robots can actually do outside a controlled setting.
What Shaq Actually Saw and Said
O’Neal’s remarks came during a Times Square event that connected his sports celebrity to a broader conversation about AI and digital security.
O’Neal made the comments at a NordVPN promotional event in Times Square, where he participated in a basketball-themed demonstration of the company’s antivirus software. “The robots I’ve seen, they can definitely [dunk],” O’Neal told Gizmodo. “I saw one that was shooting three pointers. I would play one.”
The footage that impressed him reflects genuine engineering progress. Toyota’s CUE7 humanoid robot has demonstrated free-throw shooting, performing a constrained and repeatable movement sequence.
At Beijing’s World Humanoid Robot Games, a humanoid robot reportedly recorded a 100-meter time of 9.39 seconds, faster than Usain Bolt’s 9.58-second human world record, according to NBC News. Those results come from a separate robotic competition operating under different rules and conditions; no official human athletics records are affected or challenged.
Why a Real Game Is a Different Beast
A programmed shot and a live one-on-one game are two entirely different engineering problems.
A free throw is a constrained and repeatable task: same court position, same ball, same sequence every time. A one-on-one game against a 7-foot, 325-pound Hall of Famer is something else entirely.
Competing against O’Neal would require a robot to track a moving opponent in real time and control a ball under pressure. It would also need to anticipate feints, maintain balance through unpredictable contact, and make strategic decisions with milliseconds to spare.
The engineering requirements extend further. Collision safety, motor durability under sustained load, reliable fall recovery, and spectator safety would all need to be addressed before any credible matchup could happen. Any meaningful exhibition would also require clearly defined rules covering robot autonomy, allowable contact, remote assistance limits, and restrictions on specialized hardware.
If you have watched robot highlight reels, you have likely seen the controlled gym conditions those clips never show. The most realistic near-term format is a constrained skills challenge covering shooting, dunking, or obstacle drills. Nothing in the cited reporting demonstrates readiness for full-contact one-on-one.
Shaq, AI, and the NordVPN Backdrop
The event placed O’Neal’s technology interests alongside a pointed warning about the limits of consumer cybersecurity tools.
O’Neal’s appearance at the NordVPN event connects his sports celebrity to a growing technology-investor profile. Past partnerships have included Google, Lyft, and Carvana, along with a notable investment in the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX. He told Gizmodo he uses ChatGPT as a learning tool, suggesting a generally positive view of consumer AI.
His interest in digital security came from direct experience. Scammers apparently used his identity in connection with a purported house-purchase scheme, which sharpened his attention to the issue.
NordVPN CTO Marijus Briedis flagged a concern that goes beyond antivirus software. Agentic AI systems, the kind that can act autonomously online and access financial accounts on your behalf, represent an emerging risk that current protection tools were not designed to handle, he noted. Briedis also warned that antivirus protection alone is not foolproof.
The Gap Is Still Large
What moments like this one signal is that public attention on humanoid robotics is real, even if the engineering distance remains considerable.
A high-profile challenge from an athlete like O’Neal could generate meaningful attention for humanoid robotics and encourage developers to improve whole-body control and safe human-robot interaction. The distance between a robot that sinks a free throw in a quiet gym and one that could guard Shaq in a live game, however, remains very large.
