The metrics they're using (2x its height for climbing a wall, 2x its length for crossing a gap) are weird and don't really relate to the same achievements for a traceur. 2x its height is really more like slightly over 1x its usable body for that maneuver (0.4m length, 0.51cm height of the climb). I agree, not extreme but still pretty impressive for a robot. We're not going to see them doing cat leaps any time soon ;)

Relative size of leaps doesn't seem to be a particularly useful metric for assessing the NN performance anyway, since in the absence of the human constraint of fear it's really limited only by the mechanics of its legs and its weight.

More impressive would be adaptation to obstacles without clearly delineated edges, sticking landings on uneven/moving landing sites, and especially avoidance of landing sites which appear incapable of supporting its weight properly, particularly if it could do it well enough to generalise to novel courses.

The video hints the model may be able to do this to some extent (the high jump does show some apparently necessary compensating movement to avoid slipping off), but doesn't really demonstrate it.

I'll extend 'avoidance of landing sites which appear incapable of supporting its weight properly' to 'avoidance of landing sites which are off-limits, including living things'

E.g. A sleeping dog that is motionless, a valuable item, wet concrete.

I suppose I'm going out-of-scope, though.

I'd watch the video of one of those stepping on a sleeping dog tbf...

Totally agree with this! However, it's common for research papers to use exaggerated language to emphasize their breakthroughs and accomplishments. :)

Given the title, the video was indeed a bit disappointing but I imagine that “extreme” is ironic or at least relative.

I imagined a reference to The Office

its actually hard for robots to compete with 10 year olds

For sure, but the paper is disingenuous in their description of the challenge they are supposedly tackling compared to what they actual achieve. Here's an excerpt from the introduction of the paper:

"Parkour is a popular athletic sport that involves humans traversing obstacles in a highly dynamic manner like running on walls and ramps, long coordinated jumps, and high jumps across obstacles. This involves remarkable eye-muscle coordination since missing a step can be fatal. Further, because of the large torques exerted, human muscles tend to operate at the limits of their ability and limbs must be positioned in such a way as to maximize mechanical advantage. Hence, margins for error are razor thin, and to execute a successful maneuver, the athlete needs to make all the right moves. Understandably, this is a much more challenging task than walking or running and requires years of practice to master. Replicating this ability in robotics poses a massive software as well as hardware challenge as the robot would need to operate at the limits of hardware for extreme parkour."

Here's an example of real parkour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lp1oS0vXg0

They aren't doing parkour, let alone "extreme" parkour.

Two years ago, the Boston Dynamics Atlas could do mid-air somersaults - that's better than most 10-year-olds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF4DML7FIWk

But worse at running then any able-bodied 10-years-old. Comparatively, a somersault is quite easy/well-controlled movement.

But how amazing is it that this is even a thing to consider today

Well I was very conservative in choosing a healthy 10 year old as a point of comparison. A trained 10 year old can do a lot more. This guy was 7 at the time of filming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c__4ETI7aM

I'm not trying to diminish the accomplishment with respect to the state of the art of robotics, just bring some reality to the comparison against what humans are capable of.