This gives me Black Mirror-fueled nightmares... not least because those videos suggest that a Black Mirror scenario may not be that far off and what probably saves us for now is battery capacity.
"More Black Mirror than Mirror's Edge" was my takeaway too. In terms of Parkour this is slow and awkward, but it's like watching a baby taking their first steps towards murder. The most important hurdle for many soldiers is the one these machines never needed the help of AI to get over. Even after dehumanizing the enemy many soldiers are "non-firers" and won't shoot another person even if their own life is in danger, while those who kill children and civilians are often haunted by that act.
These robots won't have any problems pulling the trigger at anyone or anything. They won't hesitate or refuse an order the way Stanislav Petrov did. They won't be trained to have empathy or respect for life. Humanity is the final check against the worst atrocities war demands from the people we send out to kill each other, and devices like these solve that "problem" by dehumanizing the soldier.
Ideally, the panacea to such nightmares is democracy. In practice, history shows that greedy people with power often don't understand anything other than force (sadly).
Idk, it really depends on how strong your affiliated lobby group is. The average voter competes against the Havard Kennedy or Oxford etc. graduate-led super PACs, lobby groups, whatever. So yes, it gets easier to believe "democracy" doesn't work or exist. However, lobby groups and elected officials wouldn't be a thing if we (society) didn't have the impetus, burden, or requirement to collectively believe (or have others do) that a thing such as democracy does exist. So if someone has a requirement to make you believe something, you have to ask why? In most cases you can acquire some kind of resolution using that.
General dystopian outcomes. After world powers harness robotic armies, revolts will no longer be possible and citizens will be permanently enslaved and must succumb to whatever oppressions are put on them.
Psychologically because it's life-like (uncanny valley).
Practically, because legs are superior to wheels when it comes to pursue a human target. It may be superior to flying as well indoor, to open doors, etc. And then there is the energy expenditure and additional mass constraint when airborne.
Research on legged robots is not just for 'fun', it's because they are better at going through obstacles and rough terrain than wheeled vehicles.
Part of it is because we already have flying/wheeling drones. Walking is just the last step of all terrain capabilities.
Flying can get you almost anywhere, but not quite. It is both very loud and has issues in enclosed spaces.
Wheels/tracks are very efficient at moving mass, but have issues crossing some materials such as exploded building internals like you would find in a war zone.
Walking/climbing is the last bit to get you inside enclosed 'human' spaces such as buildings and tunnels.
The war occurring now in Gaza would be an example area of what future battle would look like.... A target building it hit by a bomb and mostly destroyed. Smaller automated drones quickly fly over the area and assess visible targets and threats for follow up artillery. Multiple mobilized traced/wheeled heavily armored drones would address any residual ground level threats. Upon reaching the target building the larger drone vehicles would release multiple smaller 'walking/crawling' style drones to ascend the rubble, either addressing any remaining targets themselves, or reporting back to a command station for some other group to make a decision on what to do next. The final goal of these walking units is to probe deep into the rubble to ascertain if any tunnels survived the initial bombing, and if so to begin mapping any threats in said tunnels.
Sometimes when I watch videos like this I really wonder what the future is supposed to look like , heavily regulated I guess? All out chaos? Imagine what a criminal organization could do with a bunch of robots that are this agile? It's hard to imagine.
Personally,I think we'll get really good at killing robots and they'll get better at killing people (military).
