Oh laugh. Laugh as much as you want. When this break dancing robot eats a bite of sidewalk. When Robo-Olaf short circuits and ruins a Disneyland vacation. Get started now, buddy, because once Eric Trump’s veritable robot army is up and running, we’ll see who has the last laugh.
According to to a ratio of CABLEa recent startup is building the army of the future. More specifically, the future of 1991 Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Foundation Future Industries is a company developing humanoid robots for combat. While military robotics contracts are common and the battlefield is overrun with a variety of terrifying drones, what sets Foundation apart is that these killer bipeds are their signature focus. The other distinctive element of Foundation is its main strategic advisor: Eric Trump, son of Donald.
“People don’t realize that he’s actually an engineer at heart,” said Sankaet Pathak, CEO of the Foundation. CABLE“so he does a lot of milling and things like that at home.” While Trump told Fox News that the company secured a $24 million contract from the Pentagon, Pathak is more cautious about whether his involvement led to specific new funding from the White House.
Humanoid androids do good Star Diary blankets and pirate ridesbut robotics experts have long criticized the pursuit of human-shaped robotics. It is notoriously difficult to replicate human walking and running patterns across a variety of terrains.
Rodney Brooks of MIT tells CABLE we’re probably more than a decade away from a bipedal robot that can safely navigate a door frame. Replacing human boots on the ground with metal boots may not be as effective as wheels, treads, or airborne drones. The juvenile pursuit of humanoid robots has long been a grievance for YouTuber Angela Collier, who laments the fantasy of robot waiters and janitors over ketchup bottles or the more specially designed Roombas.
As Collier illustrates, these proposals are usually little more than fishing for contracts and investments. People are familiar with and captivated by the robots seen in films, and anything that closely matches these fictions merits scrutiny. It is very typical of Trump to follow the most bombastic method, regardless of its practicality. Ideally, we just don’t have killer robots walking around regardless of their legs. As of this writing, we should be more concerned about kids getting their heads kicked. by automatons that weren’t supposed to do that.