Russian official insists robot that shoots guns with both hands is ‘not Terminator’

It looks like something out of “Star Wars” or “Terminator”: an actual robot capable of walking and shooting guns with both hands.

It’s called FEDOR (stands for Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research) and it can now fire guns with both hands.

Terrifying, right? Well, Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s deputy prime minister and the deputy head of the country’s military-industrial commission, insisted on Twitter that the project is about artificial intelligence and not creating a Terminator.

The robot can also screw in a light bulb, open doors and drive a car, according to TASS, the Russian News Agency. The robot is being developed by Russia’s Emergencies Ministry and there are plans to mass produce the robot.

There is also a Russian tank robot capable of hitting its target. Rogozin posted a video of it performing operations on his Russian Twitter account. “Russian fighting robots-guys with iron nature,” is the caption.

FEDOR could make his voyage to space in 2021, according to The Independent. Martin Rees, an emeritus professor of cosmology and astrophysics at the University of Cambridge, predicted that robots and machines are likely to be the ones who explore far-off galaxies.

“The journey times are just too great for mortal minds and bodies. If you’re immortal, however, these distances becomes far less daunting. That journey will be made by robots, not us,” Rees told The Independent.

Astronaut (and soldier) could just be another job that robots take from humans, as the New York Times reported that “for every robot per thousand workers, up to six workers lost their jobs and wages fell.” The New York Times wrote about “learning to love our robot co-workers” in a February piece. A factory in China replaced 90 percent of its human workers with robots and saw productivity increase and defects decrease sharply, according to ZME Science.

This story was originally published April 17, 2017 at 4:01 PM with the headline "Russian official insists robot that shoots guns with both hands is ‘not Terminator’."