What could possibly go wrong in the following scenario: This August, the U.S. Navy will set one of its own ships on fire and then release a superhuman robot to see if it can help put out the blaze. Either this turns out to be the origins story for the next great comic book super villain that threatens humanity, or the Navy could actually have a pretty valuable tool for onboard fire safety. Experts in the Navy told Mashable that “humanoids may be tasked with dousing fires aboard naval vessels full-time within a few years” if tests continue to go well. If you ever encounter one of these “humanoid” fireproof robot heroes, watch what you say around it. According to the article, it understands English. Though there isn’t a picture of the exact Navy robot, Mashable included an image of a humanoid test robot created by he military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Boston Dynamics (pictured below). Hopefully it will look similar—their previous design was downright terrifying …
