#slamhound

Seems bad.

This is Big Dog, the US military's technological pack horse being developed by Army Research Lab Boston Dynamics. Except not content with carrying, Big Dog has developed an arm. One that can throw cinderblocks. This is probably so that it can load/unload itself but it is hard not to see the aggressive potential.

Is that just a techno-prejudice that I've developed from exposure to great and poor scifi? That the thought of autonomous machines capable of throwing heavy pieces of masonry instantly means that they will inevitably be chucking it at humans? 

It's hard not to marvel at the way the machine compensates for the weight of the action, even though it still seems to skitter about like a nervous trainee discus thrower about to compete.

I have a certain fascination for these advances because as you watch these machines go through their paces my reaction will swing between smiling at the foal-like innocence to the cold feeling of the economical metal brutalness. 

One of the best examples of this is the video of DARPA's (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) "Cheetah". Which if anyone has read the opening paragraph William Gibson's Count Zero, could be the ancestor of the slamhound. Check it out. As the video begins, the cheetah is looking kinda kooky, like some windup device. However when that sucker reaches 25km/h you will be running for your life. Well, it would have already caught you, but you know what I mean....