New Cheetah Robot Can Probably Outrun You!

I am all for the advancement of technology. We have learned to replace failing human organs with robotic or alternative tissue versions, we have miniaturized technology to the point that what once took up whole rooms now fits in the palm of our hand. Sometimes I feel like we’re not thinking that far ahead though. Recently DARPA announced that it has created the fastest legged land robot, clocking a top speed of 29 kilometers per hour (since no one uses the metric system I’ll tell you it’s 18 mph). Nicknamed the cheetah, because…well, because it’s really fast and they designed it after the movements of an actual cheetah and similar animals.

This may seem exciting. Our advancements in what robots can do is increasing exponentially (as it should, see The Law of Accelerated Returns), slowly they are becoming the cheap, soulless labor force that we all dreamed they could be. My biggest issue with all of this is that while top human speed is around 30 mph, the average human tops out around 11 mph. That is much slower than one of theses robots. While we have all been obsessing about an approaching zombie apocalypse, we have failed to consider another possible end of humanity scenario put forth by the seer: James Cameron. That is, what happens when robots become self-aware, they now have a new means to chase us down so they can inevitably plug us into The Matrix.

If that isn’t enough, here’s a bird robot that is much creepier and amazing than any military drone, courtesy of the geniuses at TED Talks: