A VIRAL VIDEO purporting to show a highly realistic human-looking robot walking around a driveway has been debunked as fake.
The video, which was posted over the weekend on Twitter and clocked up millions of views, caused concerns that developments in artificial intelligence would soon lead to a robot takeover.
Illusionist Derren Brown was among those to share the video, doing so in panicked a Twitter post which said: “WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE [his capitals]“.
However, technology website Gizmodo reports that the robot was created with computer graphics using a video game and animation engine called Unity.
It also revealed that a version of the same animated character also appeared in a web series created by District 9 director Neill Blomkamp and Oats Studios.
Designer Maxim Sullivan, who first uploaded the video to Twitter, later confirmed to Gizmodo that he was responsible for its creation.
Answering questions via the social media platform, he said: “I took the background footage with my phone. Put the character in post. Was just testing an HDRI [high-dynamic-range imaging] lighting setup I’d made… And it seems to have gone viral.”
In other words, if you were worried that the world was about to face a Terminator-like scenario, you can rest easy for the time being.
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