MIT's robot army trains together in a video that will mess you up

It's like a trailer for our future robot-powered apocalypse.
By Adam Rosenberg  on 
MIT's robot army trains together in a video that will mess you up
MIT biomimetic robotics lab mini cheetah robot Credit: Jessica Rinaldi / The Boston Globe via Getty Images

What's more disconcerting than watching MIT's dog-like Mini Cheetah robot cavort around? Nine of them doing it in unison.

We've had concerns about MIT's robots for some time now, but a new video from the school's biomimetic robotics lab opens into new levels of terror. After a playful bit of robot soccer, the nine Mini Cheetahs gather together like a military unit and start playing a dystopian version of "Simon Says."

The synchronized stretches and backflips are creepy enough, but the leaf piles will really mess up your day. This is what the eventual, clearly inevitable robot uprising will look like right in the moment it happens.

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Credit: MIT biomimetic robotics lab

NOPE.

The Mini Cheetah is a slimmed down version of the Cheetah 3, a 90-pound, four-legged machine that's roughly the size of a "full-grown labrador." As Mashable reported back in July 2018, the Cheetah 3 is built to operate primarily by touch, allowing it to perform tasks in lightless environments.

It's the perfect kind of robot for investigating locations that are hazardous to humans. But what happens when it decides not to help anymore? We end up in a world that looks like a more modern take of the Tom Selleck/Kirstie Alley classic, Runaway.

Predictably, the people of Twitter (understandably) freaked out and turned the whole thing into a reaction-filled Moment.

Topics Innovations

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Adam Rosenberg

Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.


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