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Tech

Videos: Spider-Snake Robot Versus JetSnake Nightmare-Probe Robot

Subterranean nightmare-scouts of the robo-revolution.
​Image: YouTube grab

OK, yeah, it's not even a competition. The spider-snake bot is kind of creepy, but it's a familiar creepiness. My line of work involves a whole lot of watching vaguely uncanny, self-balancing animatronic robots do things that the robot overlords will soon enough use against the human race in one final climactic battle. It just happens to combine two of the human species' most common irrational fears into one machine.

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Now, this thing—this is what emerges from the wall of whatever cave or bunker winds up housing the human race's scant few survivors, a subterranean nightmare-scout of the robo-revolution. As we cling to each other, shivering and malnourished, we'll wonder, Oh god, how is it going to kill us? But the doom-serpent just watches and watches with that unblinking light as we slowly starve and turn on each other, too exhausted to even wonder if there was a lesson in all of this.

In real-life, the JetSnake Series II will likely used in tunnel construction, where, armed with a high-pressure water jet and inspection camera, it will serve as an advance scout. It might even save lives. That said, I'm still wondering how exactly I might erase it from my memory before bedtime because I'd prefer it leaves my subconscious alone, thanks. Still, it watches … it watches.