Usain Bolt recently made history again when he dominated both the 100m and 200m sprints in spectacular style at the Olympic Games, reconfirming his status as the fastest man alive. Fastest man. Boston Dynamics’s Cheetah just crushed Bolt’s all-time top speed of 44,72 kph and in doing so marked the commencement of the slow, but inevitable, robopocalypse.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is credited for pretty much creating the Internet, is the funding behind Boston Dynamics and recently released a video showing the Cheetah clocking in a top speed of 47,15 kph. The impressive feat marks the first time a quadrupedal robot has achieved a higher speed than any human runner.

The Cheetah was developed with the purpose of providing assistance to soldiers in the field, in what capacity that would be though is unclear. It’s also highly likely that the four-legged cybernetic cat may serve less combat-oriented purposes during peacetime.

Either way, the idea of an untiring, mechanical cheetah that moves faster than the fastest man alive is rather unsettling. Just the sight of it running on a treadmill is creepy enough, imagine seeing it behind you, constantly gaining, emotionless, its cold metal body hurtling towards you.

[Source: Mashable]