https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnWolLQSZic
Boston Dynamics has been doing the impressive, the hilarious, and the downright impossible with robots for more than 25 years now. You've probably seen a handful of their YouTube videos before, since they've been known to go mega-viral on the internet a time or two.
One of the more incredible inventions from the engineering and robotics design company has been the SpotMini robots, which, as you can see from the above video, strongly resemble robot dogs. But, as you can also see from the video, these dogs just don't sit, play fetch, and roll over. In an epic display of power, 10 SpotMini robots dogs are shown pulling a massive truck in a parking lot without even breaking a sweat. Ok, so they wouldn't be able to sweat anyway, being robots and all, but you get the point. They make it look easy.
Per BostonDynamics:
It only takes 10 Spotpower (SP) to haul a truck across the Boston Dynamics parking lot (~1 degree uphill, truck in neutral). These Spot robots are coming off the production line now and will be available for a range of applications soon.
When they're not dancing to Uptown Funk, these SpotMini robots are pound-for-pound some of the most powerful machines in the tech world. Is this a sign of the impending apocalypse? Will an army of robotic dogs join forces with all of the other AI-controlled machines to conquer the world? Well, if dog is man's best friend and, considering that the SpotMinis kind of look like dogs, then maybe they'll be on the human's side, so long as we promise to walk them and dish out the occasional treat. Fingers crossed.
This post was originally published on April 17, 2019.