Artificial intelligence has taken a special place in our everyday lives. As the internet continues to grow, and more people turn to online shopping and social media, AI serves as an important conductor of modern technology. AI can be found on websites, video games, virtual assistants, and more. Slowly, even cars are embracing the feats of this remarkable technology with the current testing of autonomous vehicles (vehicles that can drive with little to no human intervention).

Now, advancements in mobility might finally take AI another step further. “Boston Dynamics is [the] world leader in mobile robots,” according to its website. Founded by Marc Raibert in 1992, Boston Dynamics is one of the few companies responsible for shaping how many see the vast capabilities of robotics.

It noticeably caught the public’s eye with one of their recent YouTube videos, titled “Do You Love Me?” and uploaded a couple of months ago. The video consisted of the company’s most well-known creations dancing to the music, their movements lively and incredibly human-like. Unlike most engineering companies, which focus on machines’ intellectual aspects (such as their ability to make certain decisions based on past experience), Boston Dynamics focuses more on the droid’s ability to move. The term “artificial intelligence” that we commonly know is considered “athletic intelligence” to them.

“‘Athletic intelligence’ [means] the robot walks, climbs stairs, avoids obstacles, traverses difficult terrain, and autonomously follows preset routes without constant input from users,” Boston Dynamics says. All of their droids are designed to maintain stability when moving around, often on mechanical legs rather than wheels.

The idea is to make the machine move almost similar to a living organism, organically. This is especially true for Atlas and Spot, the company’s two most famous robots. While Atlas, a humanoid, is still a work-in-progress (though its future looks promising), Spot has drawn attention to itself with its recent launch for commercial use. Spot is a robot built to mimic a dog, from physical shape to actual movement. It has a yellow and black metal body and is equipped with several cameras and sensors to easily detect its surroundings.

Marques Brownlee (MKBHD), a YouTuber who often reviews products from technological companies, remarks on the weight of the robot, saying, “Spot is mostly metal, so [it] weighs around sixty pounds - pretty heavy.” Yet, despite its heavy load, Spot can still jump, dance, and carry other items while staying upright.

Speaking of which, because Boston Dynamics focuses on designing their robots to be gracefully balanced, Spot does not actually make any decisions for itself. In fact, the most it can do on its own, without any human input, is avoid walking into walls or tripping over curbs thanks to some of its integrated features. Instead, Spot is navigated by a person using a remote control, which is designed to represent something similar to a gaming controller and thus is simple to use. When testing out Spot, MKBHD mentioned that “I got maybe a 90-second demo with the controller, and that to me was enough to know maybe 90% of what Spot can do,” further demonstrating its intuitiveness.

Available at an extreme price tag of $75k, this robot is clearly not meant to act as a mere home assistant. Though, according to Boston Dynamics, “[they] may explore consumer-facing applications of a future variant of this robot as early as 2022.”