PETMAN Robot + Camo Suit + Gas Mask = Terror

When we last checked in with the good folks at Boston Dynamics, they were giving their BigDog robot, already pants-crapping nightmare fuel, a gripper arm for a head capable of throwing cinder blocks. Because apparently having a robot cheetah wasn’t enough to haunt our nightmares.

In the intervening month, the Boston Dynamics marketing department, which possibly eats fear, decided its next big YouTube video should be of Petman, their humanoid robot, in a freaking gas mask. Creepy video below!

To be fair, all the Petman robot is doing is his job: Boston Dynamics built him to test chemical protection suits and so far the platform is not intended to be made autonomous. On the other hand, this robot sweats. Let’s just repeat that: He is sweating in that suit. We’ve built a sweating robot.

On the other hand, that means they release videos like this:

Don’t get us wrong, we’re glad that people fighting hazardous waste spills and soldiers facing chemical weapons attacks have a new and what seems to be highly effective platform for testing the suits they have to wear. On the other hand, we really wish Boston Dynamics would at the very least reduce the number of screaming descents into the uncanny valley by setting these videos to a peppy score, like so:

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