Submission Statement

Here's a Twitter thread from lead researcher Deepak Pathak explaining more of this.

When sci-fi writers imagine future widespread robot adoption in society, it's usually with humanoid-type robots. The Will Smith movie "I, Robot" is a good example of this.

Perhaps it's quadrupeds that will get there first. Boston Dynamics Spot is useful enough that you could imagine it selling in tens or hundreds of millions of units around the world; if the price was right, however they cost $74,500. This version was built for $6,000 and the Unittree Go1sells for only $2,700.

If someone brings the functionality demonstrated here in something costing less than $3,000 I would imagine you will start seeing robot dogs everywhere, and they'll have to update any remake of I, Robot.