A scene that looks like it was taken directly from the Black Mirror series triggered innocent bystanders, as a robot dog was seen wandering alone on a city street. However, this wasn’t a “metal head” after all, but Boston Dynamics’ robot dog, the same robot we told you about in a previous article.
This time it’s Spot, and despite its friendly name, this “robot dog for hire” struck fear and even terror into the hearts and minds of social media users . Here’s a little bit of footage put on Twitter by a Canadian user, though it’s not clear where the video was taken:
https://twitter.com/bIoodtear/status/1309325280146788352
The yellow robot dog walking peacefully on the sidewalk snapped a photo of the cameraperson then left. This type of robot developed by Boston Dynamics has already been deployed on the streets of Singapore to “enforce social distancing” or something along these lines during the covid-19 extravaganza.
There are some US police departments that also acquired robot dogs, and this move caused consternation among civil liberties groups. If you are interested in making 4-legged robot friends, you should learn that Spot-like robo-dogs are already available for the general public, i.e. you can buy one for $74,500.
And yes, this means that this particular robot dog may very well be the property of a private citizen, or he’s on the run from a government lab, who knows?
Not all internet users were happy to see synthetic dogs roaming the streets, as some of them called for “shooting them on sight”:
seeing a video of a Boston Dynamics robot actually out in public has filled me with dread. we can't let this continue. https://t.co/huTWZvxuVa
— Jane (@JaneOst_) September 25, 2020
One Twitter user made a solid point:
How many years away do you think we are from being hunted down by Boston Dynamics robot dogs for protesting the government https://t.co/nsrVD7Byy6
— Omar (@speedracerdvd) September 25, 2020
And if you didn’t’ get the “metal head” reference at the beginning of the news story, here it comes:
https://twitter.com/JelonAlexander/status/1309592607274790912
If you think $74k is a lot of money to be paid for a gadget, you should learn that Spot harbors a lot of highly advanced technology under its yellowish skin. More than that, we’re talking about advanced military technology, as the robo-dog was developed in partnership with NASA and the whole shebang was financed with DARPA money. And these guys don’t mess around!
