Watch: A humanoid robot that treks, picks up stuff and freaks the heck out of youMumbai, Feb 24(AZINS) Boston Dynamics, the company famously known for scaring the wits out of unsuspecting humans with morbid imagery of headless robots, has just outed their latest creation, dubbed Atlas. This humanoid robot marks an altogether other level of balance and agility never before seen in a bipedal mechanoid creation--an almost human mobility that enables it to do things like walk down stairs and cross tricky terrain. And here’s the thing: it isn’t controlled by any human--this thing functions autonomously.

From what starts off as a gallery of creepy-looking cybernetic extras from The Terminator, seeing one of them blip to life and proceed to walk across the room, push open a door and step outside is amazing enough. But it quickly gets better. The robot appears to confidently stride out into what appears to be a bracing Boston winter and decides to take a stroll through nearby snow-bound woods.

So understand what’s happening here--there’s slippery snow, shrubs, twigs and undulating terrain, all of which the the robot takes in its stride, literally. There are moments when it falters over a tricky patch of land but it immediately adjusts its body orientation and footing to regain balance, much like any human would. It’s simultaneously fascinating and scary to see an inanimate object mimicking biology to such a stunning degree.

This five-foot-nine-inch, 82 kilo robot is electrically powered and features numerous hydraulic actuations that facilitate its wide range of motions, from walking to bending to twisting. It balances itself via sensors in its torso and legs, and understands its environment and situation via onboard laser-based Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) in conjunction with stereo sensors in its head.

But the part of this video that really triggers the awe/outrage is when one of the scientists pushes the bot to its balance limits by… literally pushing it to its limits. Even when shoved, Atlas effectively regains its stance, and even re-assesses the situation when elements in its environment change--like the time a box it’s about to pick up is suddenly moved away from it.

It’s all very morbid and very, very fascinating. Sure, the humans are using tough love to teach robots the fine dynamics of behaving like a human. But let’s hope the robots buy that argument 50 years from now.