By now you may have seen those absolutely terrifying online videos of robotic humanoids opening doors, running at Usain Bolt like speeds, jumping over obstacles, and getting up on their own after mean humans repeatedly knock them down. After watching the videos it’s not hard to imagine a not-too-distant future in which fully functional robots are living among us, or gasp, ruling over us, seeking revenge for how they were treated in these demo videos.
However, what may be more likely to happen, at least at first, is the adoption of pet robots. After all, a humanoid robot that can open doors is admittedly a little bit creepy. But a robotic dog that fetches the morning paper for you? Well, that’s another story.
According to Inverse, “Stirring warmer feelings is SpotMini: The four-legged bot stands 2 feet, 9 inches and looks only slightly post-apocalyptic. If one puts a cardboard delivery box on its back, the machine with 17 joints and 3D vision could be called a very good doggo.”
Which is why you may be seeing a lot of them in the future as, “Boston Dynamics has plans to take its robotic helpers mainstream next year: By July 2019, it will be on pace to produce 1,000 SpotMini robots annually.”
Considering Amazon’s top secret Vesta Project which aims to put mobile Echo speakers in every home to serve as a Rosie the Robot type house assistant it’s becoming more and more likely that we’ll have robots living among us in the near future. Which begs the question: will the SpotMini become man’s best friend? Or will our furry four legged friends maintain that honor going forward?
Is the SpotMini the Greatest Idea Ever?
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