A 'Black Mirror'-Style Robot Dog Was Spotted in the Wild and People Are Freaking Out

Is it a sign of a coming robot uprising?

BY Allie GregoryPublished Sep 25, 2020

Did you have robot dog uprising on your 2020 apocalypse bingo card? The team behind Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror may have had it on theirs way back in 2017, but we thought we might have a few more years before the dystopic tale about heat-seeking killer robots came true.

Enter Spot, Boston Dynamic's robot dog, launched late last year. The $74,500 USD "agile mobile robot," which can apparently be customized "a wide range" of unnamed applications, can be "adapted for tasks ranging from industrial inspection to entertainment," and works via remote control and autonomy.

Spot the robot dog was recently caught on camera walking around on his lonesome in the middle of the night, and people are having pretty extreme reactions to it.

Check out the dystopia-documenting clip from @bloodtear below.
 


The image of Spot walking the streets alone has apparently put apocalyptic fear into the hearts of many. "How are multiple episodes of Black Mirror coming true at once?" one user responded to the video.

"Yep, this is how the end begins, thanks for the heads up Black Mirror lol," wrote another.

Meanwhile, others have taken more kindly to the comically uncoordinated hunk of metal. "I hate this but I also kinda wanna sit on top of its back & go for a ride," another user tweeted.

While Spot is hardly the first generation of robotic autonomous dogs, he is one of the first to be available commercially. Thankfully, his price tag is prohibitively steep, so don't expect to see an army of Spots running around your neighbourhood anytime soon. And not to worry, Spot doesn't come installed with any automatic weapons — yet.

Get to know Spot the robot dog better in the extensive unboxing video below, where you can also see some of Twitter's reactions to the — potentially — ominous sign of the times.


 

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