Dog, Meet Robot

Human interaction with robots is a field that still requires plenty of study before one is able to come up with a truly comfortable interaction experience, although there is at least one study that has shown how people tend to trust a robot more than their common sense when being led by said robot to evacuate a building in the event of an emergency as opposed to heading for the emergency exits. This time around, Googlers decided to introduce the Boston Dynamics robo-dog known as Spot to Cosmo, a terrier in a parking lot.

Needless to say, Cosmo was not too comfortable with a hulking, non-animal quadruped, and started to bark like crazy. What’s so special about Cosmo? He is also known as the Android team’s mascot, whose owner is Android co-founder Andy Rubin. Of course, Cosmo is unaware that Spot comes with a “battle mode”, hence in a fight between machine and furkid, there is no doubt as to who would end up as the winner.

Do take note that Spot was specially designed for military use, and so, this looks like it is the first instance of Spot being operated by civilians for the first time throughout the week long evaluation (in public, anyway).

Edwin Kee
Categories: Robots
Tags: boston dynamics, Google