This Massive Robot Could Soon Join Marines on the Battlefield
Alexis Madrigal The Atlantic November 21, 2013
The future doesn't always arrive with a gasp and a boom like Skynet inTerminator. No, sometimes it's more like Office Space.
At least that's the idea I get watching this video of the Marines' testing the Legged Squad Support System. DARPA built the LS3 to act as an autonomous pack horse that "can carry 400 lbs of a squad’s load, follow squad members through rugged terrain and interact with troops in a natural way, similar to a trained animal and its handler."
Its headless form has always disturbed me in its ... headlessness. (Like, did Haruki Murakami design these things in a fever dream? Robots galloping across the plains.) . . . ."