Boston Dynamics is a robotics company (recently purchased by Google) which, among other things, has been developing robots for use by the US Military. They have developed a pack-horse type robot known as WildCat that can be used to transport equipment in rugged terrain, and now they have released a new video in which they show a humanoid type robot in the lab and moving through a forested area.
It’s one of those videos that kind of wakes you up. This is something one would expect to see in some futuristic movie, but now we are seeing these things in the real world, and the technology looks pretty impressive. However, when one thinks of these kinds of robots in military terms, it brings up images of a whole new kind of combat, where machines, not humans are put on the front lines to carry out dangerous missions — like drones are doing in the air.
For now, it looks like Atlas has to have a minder to carry its power cord, but the presenter says they are working on a wireless version of the robot. If we look at future energy sources that we discuss here, such as LENR, we could come come up with scenarios where these machines could run for very long times without the need for refueling.
We could be moving into a very different world.