aggy robots

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Writer: Deana

Editors: Miranda & Natasha

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Robot Wars. All the viral robot videos fall somewhere on this spectrum.

However, a new one hit the timeline on Monday with such a menacing aura that I felt I had to share it here with my friends (you).

This is some mega juiced up version of the Unitree G1 Robotic Humanoid, and unsurprisingly it’s doing numbers on X. Unitree has also gone viral recently for unleashing this robot on the streets of Paris, as well as taking part in a robot boxing match.

A standard version of the G1 is currently on sale in the US for $21,600, and it reminds me of the MSCHF Big Red Boots. Both the robot and the boots serve at the altar of the algorithm. They’re designed for the holy trinity of the attention economy - content creation, virality and clip farming.

But of course that’s not the end game. The fighting robots we’re watching in these viral clips, with their combat ~aesthetics~, aren’t poised to take on some time-saving human task like folding laundry or mowing the lawn. Nor are they doing search and rescue operations or taking on otherwise dangerous human jobs like some of their more well-intentioned robot counterparts. These robots I like.

However, I do not like the fighting robots. One can’t help but imagine them in the hands of an adversarial force, and not to clutch my pearls but that’s dark as hell. And with every view and repost we are laundering them through our attention economy in order to normalize their use and sell their inevitability to investors, regulators and, probably, defense procurement agencies.

So. When MrBeast buys a fleet of these to juice the numbers on his next upload, just know what table he’s setting.

Zero Knowledge. In more optimistic news, zero-knowledge protocol Boundless launched its mainnet yesterday, with 411,000 network participants taking part. We love positive ZK news because more ZK adoption means less of our personal data leaking all over the internet in irreparable and occasionally dangerous ways.

Quick Hits.

• The story behind a “viral” t-shirt.

• How the Vatican does drones.

• An oddly satisfying look at the human condition through the lens of ChatGPT queries.

• Polymarket is never beating the insider trading allegations.

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