You've already watched that terrifying video from Google-owned Boston Dynamics, in which a robot is seemingly taunted by his heartless human creators/captors. (You've probably even seen the parodies, including this super sad one and this grimly terrifying one.) But now the cyborg-"controlling" Dr. Frankensteins are implicitly warning us that when the robots take over they won't just be coming for us — they'll be coming for our dogs.
You likely remember "Spot," Boston Dynamics' dog of war, since rejected by the US Marines over their barking and whining the loud noises the robots would make as they trudged across the field of battle. Now jobless, Spot apparently has nothing better to do than to terrorize a schnauzer, as you can see in the video below.
It's especially telling listening to the robot's controllers, who seem incredibly surprised that a dog would bark at their creation, and who joke about putting the robot in "battle mode" and "taking out" (not to pee, mind you) the barking pup. But, as Nathan famously said in Ex Machina, "after a long day of Turing tests you gotta unwind."
According to Boston Dynamics' Steve Jurvetson, who recently posted the video of the robot/dog interaction to YouTube, "The robot's lifelike movement catches the attention of a real dog," describing it as "The uncanny uncanine valley."
Uh, yeah, OK, it must be "lifelike movement" that made my dog bark frantically at every skateboarder she encountered, and Recology must occupy the "uncanny uncanine valley," since my pup lost it every time the garbage truck passed by. Whatever you say, Steve.
Previously: Google-Owned Robot Maker Ruins Christmas With War-Machine Dogs Pulling Santa's Sleigh
Google-Owned Robot War Dogs Wail Too Loudly For US Military Use
Google-Owned Boston Dynamics Improves Their Terrifying, Terminator-Like Robots