Just three short months ago, robotics company Boston Dynamics unveiled the latest upgrade to their human-like robot ‘Atlas’ - it could now perform a backflip.
Everyone, naturally, was terrified.
But, instead of pausing for a moment, like normal human beings, and thinking, ‘should we actually press on with the development of these robots which will surely rise up and enslave us all, or should we, perhaps, maybe not do that’, the tech heads at Boston Dynamics thought, ‘no, let’s crack on and because nothing could possibly go wrong here’.
And so, now they have unveiled this, the latest iteration of their animal-like (ie. four legs) Spot Mini robot and, guess what, it’s learned how to open doors, and hold them open for an armless mate.
Doesn’t sound that scary? Just watch this.
Good grief, the bit where his little clasper arms searches out the handle is straight out of Alien. And, of course, remember how blasé everyone in Jurassic Park was about the velociraptors?
“Oh, ha ha, those damned fools can’t open doors! Ha ha! We’re perfectly safe behind a door! No velociraptor will ever be able to open a door! Ha ha!”
THEY WERE WRONG.
And now that robots have clearly learned to team up, navigate their way through what appears to be a pretty heavy door, then it means that, when the inevitable man v machine war begins, we can’t even just trap them in the kitchen.
Still, at least we can cling on to one thing: it’s not possible to tell whether the robots in the video are being controlled off-camera, or whether they have an autonomous control system. If it’s the former, we’re probably alright for the moment. If it’s the latter, well, enjoy the time you have left folks.
However, let’s give them some credit: perhaps their behaviour is an upgrade on our own?
