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Video: Fast New Running Robot Is Terrifying

Alexis Madrigal
Aug 15 2011, 1:47 PM ET

We know that robots can replace humans for a lot of tasks. Recently, Foxconn, manufacturer of the iPad and iPhone among other things, announced it would buy one million industrial robots [ http://www.everything-robotic.com/2011/08/chinas-mammoth-intro-to-robotics.html (another article first item in the post to which this is a reply)]. One million!

While, like most of the Internet, I worry consistently about a robot takeover of the world, industrial robots don't really bother me. The Kiva logistics bots are even cute enough that workers give them names [ http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/01/retailrobots/ ] and use them to deliver presents to coworkers. What harm could they do? No, stationary robots making iPads I'm cool with.

The robot in the video [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlOwk6_xpWo ] above, MABEL [ http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~grizzle/papers/RobotExperiments.html ], is a whole different story. Look at the way that thing runs! Pay special attention to the knees and its gait. MABEL's creators at the University of Michigan like to emphasize that the bot spends 40 percent of its time up in the air just like a real human runner. Hats off to the creators of the technology, but this kind of human-like movement out of a bot is creepy.

MABEL has a top speed of 6.8 miles per hour, which means that most humans could outrun it (her?)... at least for a few miles.

Copyright © 2011 by The Atlantic Monthly Group

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/video-fast-new-running-robot-is-terrifying/243629/ [with comments]