One of the parts of the Terminator movies I’ve always been skeptical of is the super strength of the Terminators. Making a robot that can fire weaponry and at least outwardly appear human as long as you don’t try to have a deep conversation with it seems like it could be done today, or pretty soon. Now while I’m not an engineer, I’m skeptical that you could build such a machine sturdy enough, or with reactions quick enough, to handle a human in hand to hand combat. Unless we assume magical future technology, building a human like machine would require many of the same tradeoffs nature had to make to create a human.
So if I wanted to create a human-like infiltrator assassin-bot, how far could i get with current technology in making the body strong? Would it be possible to make a robot stronger and faster than a human while retaining human shape, or is there just no way to do that without designing it totally differently? And is there any conceivable technology that could make a terminator-style robot as powerful as the T-800, or would such a creation always be a little clumsier and weaker than a human?
Depends on what you mean by strength. Crushing a human hand or picking them up, easy. Surviving a giant explosion, being run over by a truck, or brushing off a hail of gunfire, not so much. Current bipedal robots are bulky and make a lot of conspicuous whirring noises and couldn’t display anywhere near the complex behavior or environmental navigation of the Terminator robots, though you might be able to build robots that could do very specific things sorta good enough, like aim and shoot a gun, drive a car, or navigate a room, but not all in one machine. The power supply would be a serious obstacle even if you got the right software.
For lifting, you can look at military exoskeletons which let users lift a couple hundred pounds. That was a several years ago.
In Rogue One there’s a humorous scene where the K-2SO robot snatches a grenade out of the air, which reminded me of all those demonstration videos of robot arms catching stuff, like this.
The T-800 in the Terminator movies, at least the first two, aren’t really that quick or agile. Humans easily out run them and often get in several attacks before having their day ruined. Recall Reese hitting him in the head several times with a steel rod in the original, or the bar scene in the sequel. They weren’t exactly lifting cars over their head, either.
Chimps are way stronger than humans and we’re made of the same stuff. I’d expect any futuristic killbot to turn humans into pudding.
I’m not aware of them having anything that can travel through time or go one-on-one with tank (yet)
but if you’re just looking for something to relentlessly stalk and kill all humans? Google Boston Dynamics and get a quick look at our future overlords.
Even though it’s not an explosive device, I suspect that owning a Killer Robot would make you liable under various “Infernal Machine” statutes like this:
That “…or a similar instrument, contrivance, or device…” probably allows a lot of legal leeway in determining if you’re in violation of the law.
At one point in the Freefall comic the author has one of his robot characters make the same point to a human, that in general humans and other biologicals are a lot more robust than most robots (I’m sure a war-machine would be different, but he doesn’t depict those).
If you can get over one of the main characters being furry its a really interesting read with quite a few ideas I haven’t come across elsewhere.
Right now, nobody can build a robot that can stand and walk in a human shape, period. Current robots have to stand and walk in a “frog walk” position, move with the speed of an octogenarian, and need a cable connection to an outside power supply. We are years, possibly decades away from being able to build a human-sized, human-shaped robot that moves in a way that looks human, and then you will be very lucky to keep it running for an hour or two on an internal battery. Even the CPUs would quickly drain away the battery power, much less moving around or fighting.
There are a few others that, in their way, are probably closer to being more convincingly human. ASIMO’s movement is more fluid, and this one is more human-like in stance, although still stiff and robotic. Both of these lack the terrain adaptibility of the Boston Dynamics walker, however.