Boston Dynamics released a video last week of dancing robots that might seem light-hearted and fun, but it frankly creeped the hell out of us.
You may remember Boston Dynamics as the company that has been developing life-like robots and showcasing them for around 11 years now. The video of “BigDog” was pretty jarring when it first came out, as it showed a dog-like robot keeping its balance while walking on ice and being kicked by some members of the Boston Dynamics team. The U.S. Army initially considered utilizing BigDog as a military pack mule, but soon deemed it too loud for combat situations.
In this latest video, we see a few different types of these robots dancing to Do You Love Me by The Contours. The song was a huge hit in 1962, and then again in 1987 for the film Dirty Dancing. It’s that sequence from Dirty Dancing that seems to be the biggest inspiration for the way these robots are dancing in this video.
Be right back. Going to practice my moves before I get schooled by Boston Dynamic robots https://t.co/b7xDvWqu4T
— CNET (@CNET) January 1, 2021
But the thing that makes this video so creepy is how well these robots articulate and coordinate with each other. It begins with one human-like robot dancing alone, but is soon joined by a twin, then a small dog-like robot and eventually this crazy thing with tank treads and… oh please make them stop!
Ahem. But we’re not the only ones to feel slightly terrified by this video. A whole slew of reaction videos are already popping up on YouTube as people can’t believe what they’re seeing. Many commenters of these videos are convinced that they’re watching some kind of CGI or computer manipulation, but in no way can these be real. But they are.
So what are your thoughts? Is this the beginning of the end, and that light-hearted Contours song will be the theme song for the apocalypse? Or do you embrace our new robot overlords with open arms?
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