Robot Parkour

We carry a vision of robots that are less-than copies of human beings. Human-shaped robots in that vision are top heavy and cannot balance themselves as fast or well as a human, which can be pretty funny. So far, the most successful are those that don't even pretend to be human, like the Roomba or one-armed factory robots.

But Boston Dynamics keeps improving the human powers of their human-shaped robots. The latest edition of their Atlas robot can balance itself well enough to run a parkour course that looks like a cross between a dog agility run and a gymnastics facility, all the while resembling a human wearing a backpack so much that it gives us the uncanny willies.