Why Google’s Robot Dog Terrifies You

One of the strangest and most unsettling things I have seen on the Internet in quite a while—and like everyone else, I regularly see strange and unsettling things on the Internet—is a YouTube video called “Petman Tests Camo.” It begins with a figure walking in place on a treadmill. The figure is wearing a beige combat suit with black gloves and boots, its face covered by a gas mask, likewise black. There is a harness around its torso, by which it is connected to a metal frame surrounding the treadmill. There is something almost comical about its stride, precise yet ungainly.