Japanese Robot Can (Almost) Run - We Are So Doomed

Am I the only one who finds this terrifying? Like, sure, it’s not quite as immediately scary as Boston Dynamics’ BigDog, but imagine what it’ll look like a couple decades from now when several of these things are sprinting over a hill at you with guns for heads after the military buys them up? Can you say Judgment Day? Of course you can.

The bot, called Athlete, is the brainchild of Ryuma Niiyama, a post-doctorate student at MIT, and uses pneumatic artificial muscles to simulate human legs. Currently, it can only run three steps before toppling over, but it’s only a matter of time before the current Olympic sprinting records are stripped from our species.

Here’s a full body shot of the robot to terrify the piss out of you.