Russian President Vladimir Putin has a lot in common with the Terminator. He's stiff. He doesn't emote. He's single-minded in his focus. He's (arguably) cold-blooded. Plus, he likes to show off his muscles.
So it kind of makes sense that he would be interested in having Russia build a real-life cyborg. But if this is the nation's first attempt at building its own Terminator, it looks laughably bad.
A new video has surfaced online, published by Russia Today, of President Putin viewing a robot as it drives a 4-wheeler around a small off-road course. The robot was built by Russia's Advanced Research Foundation and Android Technics. According to RT, the robot fired five shots from a pistol (which was not caught on video), hitting its target every time. Then it drove the 4-wheeler — ridiculously slowly.
The thing is, the robot wasn't autonomous. Its every action was remotely-controlled by a human operator who wore a special "sensor suit."
In the video, Putin appears less than pleased. Yet the quote he gave to the Russian press was upbeat, praising the robot as "on the right path to achieve the desired objectives." He even remarked that it looked like something from "a sci-fi movie." So that bored, unimpressed expression he displays in the video as he watches the robot drive around... That was his version of pleased? You've got to admit, it's awfully hard to tell.
But if Putin's "desired objective" is to create a cyborg killing machine, he's got a very long way to go.
