BOSTON DYNAMICS' ATLAS ROBOT WILL OUTRUN YOU

You can try and run but the robot will be able to catch you.

Boston Dynamics' Atlas robot has run through fields and we have seen the robot-guy landing backflips, and now Boston Dynamics' bipedal robot can do parkour, yeah, that is right. We are doomed. 

Perhaps saying we are doomed is a bit too intense. However, Atlas' creators are just teaching him to move around effectively, not hunt down people, but it still is scary to see a clearly mechanical creation moving around in a way very similar to actually-fit human beings. The log-hop in the video below is standard fare to the robot at this point, but it is the unhesitating bounces up a series of offset boxes that really sticks in the mind.

It is a quick trip to the uncanny valley but it's one that we really have to take. That is because these trails and tests are leading us towards robots that can move and function more like a human being – which is a very desirable event. If you need something to check the inside of a nuclear reactor or set up a base on Mars, it will be safer and perhaps more effective to drop off a humanoid robot that it will be to send an actual human being.

And the way Boston Dynamics is going, their tech is going to be at the fore of a lot of fronts. We just wonder what Atlas is going to be up to next. Hopefully, it involves a skateboard, a flight of stairs, and a kickflip.