Futurism Features Insights into Boston Dynamics’ ‘Horrifying’ Robodog

The Terminator has nothing on Boston Dynamic’s robodog, dubbed Spotmini, which attracted negative attention from at least one tech website, Futurism.com, which derided the invention’s “horrible, human-like eyes.”

The editors and writer had fun mocking the dog’s creepy look, with subheadings like “Low-Budget Black Mirror” and “Please…Kill…Me.” Boston Dynamics created the high-tech doberman pinscher for “detecting guns, explosives, and gun residue to assist police, the military, and security personnel.” It could be used as a service dog for the visually impaired, in medical diagnostic monitoring and as a first responder for search and rescue missions, too.

Scientists from Florida Atlantic University’s Machine Perception and Cognitive Robotics Laboratory (MPCR) in the Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences in FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Science used AI and deep learning to create prototypes of the robots. Ata Sarajedini, Ph.D., Dean of FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, said in a press release:

“Astro is inspired by the human brain and he has come to life through machine learning and artificial intelligence, which is proving to be an invaluable resource in helping to solve some of the world’s most complex problems.”

Techxplore.com describes it as what, “you get if you combined Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa with Boston Dynamic’s quadraped robots? You’d get “Astro,” the four-legged seeing and hearing intelligent robodog.”

The Washington Post featured a story on how a pack of robodogs could in tandem, evoking another creepy mental image.