See The Terrifying Robot Dog That Patrols The Streets Screaming At People
A very unsettling and terrifying robot dog is being used on the streets to make sure that people are keeping their distance from one another.
This article is more than 2 years old
The future is terrifying. Sure, we’ve made some huge advancements in medicine and science that have allowed us to create things never thought possible in the past, but at what point have we gone too far with certain endeavors? Today, we may have the answer for you. Let us direct your attention to China’s “helper” in keeping its citizens inside during their newest COVID lockdowns: a robot dog. While it moves more like a creepy robot spider with a megaphone strapped to its back, it is allegedly a robot dog and not an arachnid. Pup-spider, whatever! It’s incredibly creepy and unsettling.
For some context, the city of Shanghai, China, where the robot version of man’s best friend is roaming the streets, is staring down a giant avalanche of freshly confirmed COVID cases. Because of this, the city has, as of just a few weeks ago, moved forward with another lockdown. Since news broke of the Omicron subvariant, Shanghai has seen a spike in cases leading them to cancel countless events, shutter the doors to businesses, and urge their citizens to stay inside of their own homes. While the numbers are certainly nowhere near the first wave of the virus, now over two years in the past, this new one is clocking in less than 8,000 asymptomatic cases and 438 symptomatic cases leading the city to take every precaution they deem as necessary. Hoping to squash the spread before it tracks further, Reuters reports that Shanghai is informing residents that they may not even step outside of their doorways to take out the trash. That’s where the good ol’ robot dog steps in – not to take out the trash for them, but to yell at them if it sees anyone in the streets.
In the video shared on Twitter that shows the robot dog ruling the streets of Shanghai, the bot seems unfazed that it’s being filmed. Cruising its way down the desolate lanes, it doesn’t even bat an eye (or whatever the robot equivalent is) at the person standing off to the side recording it and obviously ignoring the lockdown orders. It just gleefully continues its creepy crawly way down the street with the megaphone affixed to its back.
If the robot dog wasn’t silly enough, the idea that technology has come far enough to create such a thing but couldn’t do a quick modification to include some sort of speaker or megaphone combo is wild. But, as far as vibes go, the megaphone strapped to the robot’s back definitely has more of an apocalyptic feel to it. Blaring out is the sound of a very calm woman telling those within earshot to stay inside (which we think they already know) along with other directions.
With its creepy powers combined with the threat of another Omicron variant, we think the robot dog is just the thing to make sure citizens are staying locked inside of their own homes. Who’s to say if it’s helping, but we know that if we took our trash outside and saw that thing shuffling down the street, we’d think twice about doing it again. Imagine getting bit by the robot dog.
