A robot rises off the hardwood and hangs at the rim — the clip loops on my phone. You feel the tiny panic that comes from watching a machine make a human move better than you can. Then Shaq, parked under a makeshift hoop in Times Square, laughs and says he would suit up against one.
I was there when Shaquille O’Neal — still massive in person, still smiling — talked about robots, AI shopping assistants, and the cyber mess that almost hit his wallet. I’ll tell you what he said, what it means for your accounts, and why a dunking robot is not just a stunt anymore.
Shaq at Times Square
I watched him step onto a mini court and swat shots from fans like a guardian of the paint. He was promoting NordVPN’s anti-virus protection and acting as both celebrity and demonstrator: a human body representing the idea of a shield against fast, clever attacks. Shaq said he’d play a robot — not in bravado alone, but because robots today already mimic basic basketball moves. He pointed to clips and to Toyota’s CUE7, then smiled and added that some machines can even hit threes.
Can robots dunk?
Yes — and no. The robots you’ve seen on social feeds sprint and leap with machine precision, and some humanoid models at competitions have posted sprint times that would embarrass sprinters like Usain Bolt. But court impact isn’t just raw speed: timing, adaptation, and unpredictability still favor humans in chaotic, contact-heavy play.
Robots that can run and shoot
I watched a video of a humanoid outpacing a 100-meter human world record, and it felt strange and small. Engineers have taught machines to repeat perfect motions: a free throw, a three, a rigid dunk. Toyota’s CUE7 and other companies train models on narrow skills, and startups are building shopping agents that act autonomously inside your accounts. The technical win is real, but so is the gap: robots excel at repeatable, bounded tasks and begin to stumble when rules change mid-play.
Would Shaq beat an AI robot?
Shaq laughed when I asked. He’d play one. He admitted some robots can dunk and even shoot — and that, for him, the matchup is partly theater and partly a test. If you’re picturing a televised spectacle, that’s accurate. If you’re picturing a full-speed, contact-heavy NBA game, the answer is murkier. The machines are impressive, and they’re getting faster; your question becomes a wager on which edge matters most: brute force and reach, or instincts sharpened by decades on the hardwood.
Shaq the investor and public figure
I stood beside him while cameras rolled and he spoke plainly about bets that paid and bets that didn’t. He’s an early investor in outfits like Edsoma and has partnered with Carvana to create a shopping assistant dubbed Shaqbot. He also publicly took a hit for his prior FTX association. That spread of wins and losses matters because it frames how he chooses technology: he backs what he uses and what he trusts. He also told me he uses ChatGPT himself — not as a replacement, but as a tool.
When an attack hits a real wallet
Someone tried to buy a house with one of his cards, and that moment changed how he thinks about protection. He told me that personal breach made security feel urgent and immediate. NordVPN staged a stunt where Shaq blocked shots to illustrate antivirus software blocking attacks, which works as a metaphor and a sales pitch: software helps, but it won’t stop every clever scam on its own.
AI agents, shopping, and banking
I tried an AI shopping demo last week that logged into a test account and placed orders without human prompts beyond setup. Banks and security teams are watching because those agents can be granted bank-level permissions. Meta’s Muse and OpenAI’s Dots are pushing autonomy forward, and that raises a simple threat: agents can be hijacked, misdirected, or manipulated by attackers.
Are AI shopping agents safe?
Not fully. Financial institutions warn that agentic shopping will increase fraud attempts unless protections evolve. NordVPN CTO Marijus Briedis told me his team is building products that protect autonomous agents, and said protection for agents will probably ship as either consumer or enterprise options. Password managers, regular updates, and encryption remain basics you should not skip.
What you should do
I’ll be blunt: if you treat every new AI feature as a harmless convenience, you’re handing attackers better tools. Add multi-factor authentication, tighten card alerts, and separate accounts for AI-driven shopping where possible. Think of your defenses like a bank vault with a doorman — layers that slow down an attacker long enough for you to notice.
Shaq’s willingness to square off with a robot is a useful provocation: it forces a question about confidence, capability, and consequence. If a machine can dunk and a model can spend from an account, which of those do you fear more — the highlight reel or the quiet theft?