A dog was left perplexed after it met an AI robot dog on the affluent streets of west London’s Holland Park.
Footage shows the black-and-white dog cautiously keeping a distance during a walk from the white, motorised man’s best friend.
The real dog spooks, spaniel-like ears flapping up, and continues to bark as the white robot dog stands on its hind legs – tottering closer, while also on a lead held by a hidden owner, to the very confused dog.
Barking, yet still wagging its tail, the quizzical dog approaches and retreats from the robot – as its owner, wearing a grey top and jeans, holds on to its lead.
Sceptical, the dog jumps into a playful downward dog position, as the confusing creature comes closer.
Seemingly as bewildered as onlookers, it proceeds to sit down and bark as the robot astonishingly perfects a paw-stand on its front two legs.
The person filming keeps an ongoing charismatic commentary as a backdrop to the video, saying: ‘Dog sees the future and he is like “nah”. That is hilarious’ and ‘the dog is like what is going on. You are on four legs but this should not be happening.’
The robot appears to be the Go2 AIR Robotic Dog model made by Chinese firm Unitree Robotics, costing around £2,000.
Footage shows the black-and-white dog cautiously keeping a distance from the white, motorised man’s best friend during a walk
Sceptical, the dog jumps into a playful downward dog position, as the confusing creature comes closer
Barking, yet still wagging its tail, the quizzical dog approaches and retreats from the robot – as its owner, wearing a grey top and jeans, holds on to its lead
The robot dog is described as an ‘advanced intelligent bionic quadruped robot’, which can ‘perform complex movements’.
This includes: upside-down walking, adaptive roll-over and obstacle climbing.
It uses sensors, named 4D LIDAR L1, to assess its surroundings – or, in this case, other beasts.
The robot has remote sensing technology that uses reflected light to create 3D models and maps of nearby objects.
Much like a smart speaker, it recognises human voices and can respond to commands and questions, such as ‘can you take my photo?’
A camera where the dog’s face would be has an ultra-wide angle lens to deliver snaps of ‘rich clarity’ whenever the command is given.
An accompanying smartphone app lets users view the photos and even see a feed of Go2’s surroundings from the dog’s point of view.
The dog is also ’empowered’ by a kind of artificial intelligence (AI) known as a large language model, meaning it’s been trained on vast amounts of text and audio to respond in a human-like way.
The robot dog is seen displaying its impressive capabilities including handstands, jumps and dance moves
The firm’s newest robotic pooch even provides real-time mapping of terrain that the owner can see on their device
It also gathers information to learn the ‘unique characteristics’ of the user, making it their ‘closest friend’, however it is not known exactly what information about the owner it uses in this way.
Despite its listed capabilities, which includes not having to worry about waste bags, it cannot be ‘walked’ in the rain as it is not waterproof and has a battery life of one to two hours.
The name of the robotics line could be a reference to the ancient Chinese board game Go, renowned for its skill and complexity.
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With its four legs and animal-like agility, Go2 is similar to Spot, the canine-like robot from US company Boston Dynamics.
The company Unitree Robotics is based in Hangzhou, China, and is one of the biggest players in the robotics industry.
It has also created the Unitree G1 robot. It weighs 35 kilograms (77 lbs), stands at 1.32 metres tall (4.33 ft) and boasts 23 degrees of freedom in its joints, which gives it more mobility than the average human.
Behind its blank face, the robot is hiding an advanced perception system which includes a 3D LiDAR sensor and a depth–sensing camera.
This makes it one of the most advanced commercially available humanoid robots in the world.
The G1 was seen dancing around in Unitree’s video
The Unitree robot went viral in March after a young boy was slapped across the face by a rogue robot in Shaanxi Province, China.
Meanwhile, at the end of last year, a robot kicked a man in the groin, while mimicking his movements.
And in November, a bot attempted to cook a stir–fry, but ended up flinging the food on the floor and slipping over in the mess.
