They say the future of war is robotic…
The growing ubiquity of Unitree’s robots is ratcheting up fears about a Terminator-like future in which humanoids like the G1 are mass produced as robotic soldiers or hacked to cause harm by adversaries.
Following the 2026 Spring Festival Gala spectacle, AI-generated video of Unitree’s humanoids in military drills went viral across social media. Those who fell for the computer-generated videos and those who didn’t generally agree. Though the footage is fake, the trajectory feels real.
Unitree’s quadrupedal robots have been modified for military exercises by the People’s Liberation Army, the US Marines, Ukraine, and others. The company stresses it does not support lethal use cases. In October 2022, Unitree joined Boston Dynamics, Agility Robotics, ANYbotics, and others in signing an open letter pledging to not weaponize their machines. The pledge also included reviewing customer applications and exploring techbased safeguards.
Other robotics firms, however, are eager to deploy their machines on the battlefield, including San Francisco-based Foundation, which aims to manufacture 10,000 of its industrial humanoids in 2026, and is developing a foundational model literally called Skynet.