Does video show armed robot performing military exercises? Fact Check

A series of videos spreading on social media show what appears to be an artificial intelligence robot being trained in military combat. In many of the videos, the robot is seen shooting targets while being distracted or physically hit by the people operating what appear to be training drills.

FALSE

While the video is rather shocking, it isn’t real, and does not depict a genuine robot. The various clips all originate from a video uploaded by Corridor Digital, a video effects and branding company that specialises in digital effects and viral videos.

On October 26th 2019, Corridor Digital uploaded a 4 minute CGI video showing a “robot” undergoing various military-style training exercises, such as shooting at non-human targets that were lined up alongside human targets, while being hit with various objects by human aggressors. Towards the end of the original video, the “robot” is instructed to shoot a robot dog, but refuses and ultimately escapes with the “dog”.

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None of it is real, since it is all special effects. The videos appear to be a parody of older Boston Dynamics (a real engineering company) videos, since the Corridor Digital video is watermarked with the name Bosstown Dynamics.

The popularity of the original video by Corridor Digital has led to other social media users uploading the video elsewhere, often in a shortened format, along with the claim that the video is genuine, which it is not.

And while many social media users have commented on the quality of the CGI, others appear to have taken the videos at face value, most likely because AI and robotics are developing at such a speed that many feel that the video isn’t indeed too far of the mark as to what it possible, either now or in the near future.

Either way, the videos are not real.