Watch a Real Dog Throw Down Against One of Those Creepy Robo-Dogs

You know those kinda cool but kinda creepy Boston Dynamics robotic dogs that have been making the rounds on the internet? Yeah, c’mon, you know the ones. We make plenty of jokes about being afraid of them (jokes, I say), but it seems like we’re not alone in the “oh my gosh what is this what’s happening I don’t like this” camp. Dogs–that is, flesh and blood dogs–don’t like them either. Go figure.

What you see in the video is Alex Cosmo, who is apparently Andy Rubin (founder of Android)’s dog barking wildly at Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot. The video is narrated by Steve Jurveston (venture capitalist behind SpaceX, Tesla, and more). The robot’s controlled by a human, so don’t think that this is the robot running off some AI or programming or anything. All the same, it’s kind of an eerie showdown, isn’t it? Almost… like a vision of the future… or something. Or maybe not.

Either way, dogs, man. Truly humanity’s best friend.

[CORRECTION]: Andy Rubin’s dog is named Cosmo, not Alex. We’ve updated the story accordingly.

(via Gizmodo)

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Jessica Lachenal

Jessica Lachenal is a writer who doesn’t talk about herself a lot, so she isn’t quite sure how biographical info panels should work. But here we go anyway. She's the Weekend Editor for The Mary Sue, a Contributing Writer for The Bold Italic (thebolditalic.com), and a Staff Writer for Spinning Platters (spinningplatters.com). She's also been featured in Model View Culture and Frontiers LA magazine, and on Autostraddle. She hopes this has been as awkward for you as it has been for her.

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