You don't, but only because you have experience seeing footballers playing well to compare against.
What's your point of reference for judging these robots? Unless you're well-versed in the field you probably aren't qualified to say whether or not this is good or bad work. Consequently it's not that unreasonable to accept the article at face value. It's not like you've got anything to lose.
You don't look stupid if you believe a believable story so cynically protecting yourself by saying it's unimpressive compared to, say, the latest Boston Dynamics video, isn't really very fair on the people who did the work.
What's your point of reference for judging these robots? Unless you're well-versed in the field you probably aren't qualified to say whether or not this is good or bad work. Consequently it's not that unreasonable to accept the article at face value. It's not like you've got anything to lose.
You don't look stupid if you believe a believable story so cynically protecting yourself by saying it's unimpressive compared to, say, the latest Boston Dynamics video, isn't really very fair on the people who did the work.