{"id":674776,"date":"2026-11-04T14:16:15","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T14:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/674776\/"},"modified":"2026-11-04T14:16:15","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T14:16:15","slug":"very-good-boys-the-dark-dystopian-rise-of-robot-dogs-arwa-mahdawi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/674776\/","title":{"rendered":"Very good boys? The dark, dystopian rise of robot dogs | Arwa Mahdawi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever wanted to hang out with a dog with no fur, no face and a chip in its shoulder? If so, I suggest you head to San Francisco, where a startup called Dimensional has been paying people $20 (\u00a315) an hour to walk four-legged robot dogs<\/a>. This isn\u2019t because the dogs need the exercise \u2013 it is because the company needs the training data. As reported in the New York Times, the goal is to develop \u201coperating systems that can integrate with AI agents so the machines can act more independently\u201d.<\/p>\n

What exactly will these machines do when they can act more independently? The founder of Dimensional insists they will help people. They might carry groceries home, for example, which is certainly something my tiny chihuahua-mix is incapable of.<\/p>\n

While it is nice to think that robo dogs are all going to be very good boys, there is a darker side to the industry. A couple of months ago it was reported that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) planned to spend up to $2m (\u00a31.5m)<\/a> on robot dogs made by the company Boston Dynamics. ICE has said the dogs won\u2019t be used for anything nefarious but, considering everything the agency has been up to lately, this isn\u2019t particularly reassuring.<\/p>\n

Look, you might say, while this is all very dystopian, these things aren\u2019t really dogs. They\u2019re just canine-shaped robots. At least we\u2019re not seeing the rise of real dogs with AI-powered armour. Alas, that\u2019s just around the corner. Last month a startup called Warhound<\/a> launched with the aim of creating genetically modified dogs<\/a> equipped with \u201cadvanced cybernetic augments, software and battlefield situational awareness\u201d. What does that mean in plain English? Details about Warhound are sparse, but I\u2019m pretty sure it likely means mutant dogs that kill people.<\/p>\n

I base that assumption, by the way, on the people behind Warhound. One is bioscience entrepreneur Ben Lamm<\/a>, who made headlines for trying to bring the dodo back from extinction. The other is Palmer Luckey, a mullet-loving, seemingly-war-obsessed billionaire who founded weapons company Anduril. \u201cSocieties have always needed a warrior class that is enthused and excited about enacting violence on others in pursuit of good aims,\u201d Luckey said in 2024<\/a>. \u201cYou need people like me who are sick in that way and who don\u2019t lose any sleep making tools of violence in order to preserve freedom.\u201d I\u2019m not sure about that, Mr Luckey. I for one would sleep a lot better if we left dogs alone and put billionaires on a tight leash.<\/p>\n

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Have you ever wanted to hang out with a dog with no fur, no face and a chip…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":["post-674776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}