The simple act of taking your dog for a walk down the street is usually one that gives us a break from technology.
With your phone locked and in your pocket, it’s a nice way to get some fresh air and spend quality time with your beloved pet.
Only, it seems like in the future, walking man’s best friend could look like a dystopian nightmare.
Robotic dogs frightened viewers who watched the Metalhead episode of Black Mirror but, when it first aired on Netflix in 2017, it seemed like a far-off, unrealistic problem.
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How wrong we were as a real-life ‘robo dog’ has been spotted trotting down the streets of London.
In a video uploaded to TikTok by Harriet Coombsie on her page, @coombsiehazza, a silver and white metal dog walks down the road before turning to eerily look at the camera.
The video has gained nearly 150,000 views and, taking to the comment section to share their shock, one user wrote: “That is the scariest thing ever. I do NOT want that to become a thing!”
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Another said: “The way I’d run bc It reminds me of the killer machine from a black mirror episode ‘metal head’.”
A third shared: “When you watch the newest ‘war of the worlds’ series set in London, this reallyyyy hits differently. That series messed me up because they look so much like those robots!!!”
And a fourth asked: “what if the robot dog took a real dog for a walk?”
Meanwhile, another person wasn’t as horrified by the sight of the robotic canine, adding: “I hate the idea of them but hate more that I find them kind of cute.”
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Luckily, it seems like there is a person holding a controller that controls the robot dog’s movements, so it’s unlikely that the dog is moving by itself.
Still, if technology advances continue in this direction, we might one day see metal dogs strolling the streets in place of our furry companions.
And it isn’t just dogs who are at risk of losing their roles - a creepy video surfaced earlier this year that shows lines of humanoid robots performing tasks.
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The eerie clip pans across a room where silent robots with fixed smiles efficiently pack and box items.
It seems robots might one day take our jobs as this shows a possible glimpse into the future where AI robots could be trained within minutes to complete simple tasks.