The Day Humans Taught Robots to Fight Back

 

An amazing video of a robot dog fighting off a human as it tries to open a door is not only creepy, but it also has raised the question: Why are we teaching a robot to fight back against humans?
The "dog" in question is the Spot Mini, a 66-lb. (30 kilograms) robot designed to fit comfortably in a home or an office. In the video, the dog is shown attempting to open a door—when a human comes with a hockey stick and shoves the robot's grasping arm away from the door knob. The robot manages to open the door anyway, and even continues standing when a human tries to pull "him" away from the door using a huge leash.

Robot dog

Unlike some of Boston Dynamics' other robots, such as the humanoid Atlas, SpotMini isn't designed to help people in a disaster situation. Instead, he's meant to be a vaguely cute home or office assistant. But that means he actually needs extra capabilities that a disaster robot might not.
For instance, to be useful, a fetching robot would need to be able to pick up objects of different sizes and bring them to its "master," which many battlefield robots aren't designed to do. And the home environment also involves challenges, such as doorways, stairs and slippery obstacles, which earlier versions of the robot struggled with. So far, Boston Dynamics has shown that progressive iterations of Spot Mini can do these tasks: The company  has posted videos of this little dog climbing stairs, crawling under tables, loading a dishwasher, filling the trash and bringing someone a Diet Coke.
And of course, many homes have children, who are not known for their restraint when dealing with pets and other moving objects, as this video montage of babies riding Rumbas reveals.
Boston Dynamics doesn't explicitly mention the hazards of small children, but its tersely-worded description of the robot in the YouTube video does hint at that type of challenge.