This Muscle-Powered Robot Might Be the Creepiest Thing We've Ever Seen

Forget valleys; we're now entering veritable Grand Canyons of uncanniness. Behold the robot known as "Protoclone," built by Clone Robotics. It's supposedly the world's first bipedal, musculoskeletal android. But it's mostly just got people extremely creeped out. In a promotional video shared on X this Wednesday, the startup — of which little is known — makes every effort possible to subvert the industry's favored image of robots as servile little helpers there for the good of humankind. Nope. With a menacing cinematic score, we're presented with this writhing, cadaverous mass, shorn of a recognizable face, blindly grasping at the world it didn't want to be brought into. A totally unsolicited reminder that we, too, are merely the supple impedimenta playing host to a network of electrical pulses. Or something. Clearly the intent here is to shock, perhaps in lieu of sharing something more substantive. In any case, it worked: the video has gone instantly viral, spawning equal parts ala ... Read full article.