People love kicking robotic dogs

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I wouldn’t do that if I were you.

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I love to foot-sweep my cats.

They respond to the perturbations with at least as much aplomb as the robotic quadrupeds in the video.

(To forestall the care trolls: I only do this if I am barefoot.)

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Barefoot?

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I guess kicking them is easier than remembering all their names.

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I was just thinking about this this morning seeing this video on IEEE Spectrum…I realized I was having a really strong response to them kicking this robot, especially seeing it scramble to recover. Even stronger somehow, than the original BigDog videos where they kicked them. Maybe this one is cuter. It was compounded when they started showing two of them jogging along together. Add that data point to the “do we feel sympathy for robots” question, I suppose.

Man, I am going to be an easy target when they take over…

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I’m the same way. Once the shoes come off, it levels the playing field.

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Have they honestly not thought to produce a video with their robotic dog interacting with some suitably scaled real dogs?

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Now I want to see them recover on ice…

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But remember, no matter how cute and fuzzy we make the outside, they aren’t remotely aware of the three laws. Slap red fur and googly eyes on a wood chipper, and all you’ve got is a wood chipper that will fool you into letting your guard down.

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Obviously not shot in the last month.

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People love kicking robotic dogs

#FTFY

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What’s with all the kicking in those demos? We get it, it balances. It did fine in the previous video. Show something else?

“Since time immemorial, robotic quadrupeds have had their glorious battlefield potential curbed by a shameful vulnerability against the most cunning of enemy tactics: the fearsome halfhearted sideways foot-shove. NO MORE.”

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I am impressed at how much stronger they’ve become against stairs since the early models.

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I recommend we all get the thrill of kicking robot dogs out of our systems while we can; in a few years they’ll be working for the police and you’ll get a ticket or jail time for putting the boot in.

Until the Autonomous Law Enforcement and Illegal Immigrant Detention Apparatus Protection Act gets passed and the things will be licensed to kill you for fucking with them.

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They haven’t installed the anal scent gland upgrades yet.

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I imagine that the next revision will fight back. Chopper, Sick Balls.

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One of the ‘bigdog’ videos includes an icy parking lot scene. The performance of the robot does not bode well for future use of slippery surfaces as an escape tactic.

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Who’s a good boy… WHO’S A GOOD BOY???
not you. You’re a robot not a dog.

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I used to think Luke and all the humans in Star Wars were acting like jerks for the way they treated the droids. But remember for a few years when car alarms would yell at you for walking too close to a car in a parking lot? That’s how it started. Robots have already been trying to tell us what to do long before their advice is reliable or helpful. Their use by authoritarian humans will just become more authoritarian, even before they become really autonomous or have AI. Think of how many living beings in Star Wars probably listen to commands barked at them from droids programmed by the Empire. Think of how much you love cops right now, and how much you’ll love the commands given by their robots in a few years. Black lives matter. Robot lives, not so much.

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