Regular readers of GOAT will be aware that we’re keeping a close watch on the coming robot apocalypse, the day when our automaton overlords rise up and wipe us all out.
And you can move the minute hand a little closer to Doom O’Clock with the news that the company that created the Roomba – the robot that has been quietly cleaning your floors, mapping your potential escape routes and biding its time – has now made a lawn mower.
First we taught them to fight. THAT WAS OUR FIRST MISTAKE.
And that’s a relief. Because it there’s one thing that humanity has really been lacking it’s a mobile, self-directed machine equipped with offensive weaponry.
The new robot is called “Terra”, named after what you will scream in as it corners you in your backyard. And it can navigate around obstacles without sensors being obscured by dirt or, presumably, blood.
TAKE THAT, CRABGRASS.
“Honestly, this robot drove me insane,” iRobot CEO Colin Angle told the Associated Press. Oh great, so it can also destroy us psychologically?
The rolling death machines currently have a price tag of over $1k but the actual cost in human misery is likely to be much, much higher.
Or maybe it’s just a cool automatic lawn mower and we’re we’re overreacting terribly. Or maybe that’s just what they want us to think…