The most horrifying news of the day.

For anyone who has read Farenheit 451, news that the modern world has successfully created the primary human-life-ending robobeast from Ray Bradbury's masterpiece would be met with little less than abject terror. Well get your terror faces ready, because that news appears to be upon us. DARPA has released the video of the first field test of their unsettlingly named Alpha Dog.



Not unsettling because it shares a title with an atrociously bad attempt to boost Justin Timberlake's acting career, but unsettling because the robotic creature that hunts down Farenheit 451's protagonist is similarly canine in christening: the Mechanical Hound.

Sure, DARPA claims that Alpha Dog is intended for equipment transport, but if that was really the case, they wouldn't have made it so fucking terrifying. It's movements are almost unearthly in their eeriness. It joyfully trots along with a spring in its step; as if the human skulls crushed beneath its metallic hooves are just a little bit too hot.

This, coupled with the news that 30% of the U.S. military's aircraft are drones, is pretty indicative that we are in some shit.

[spotted on Singularity Hub]