When Donald Trump ascended to office for the second time, he promised to deploy an arsenal of high-tech surveillance gadgetry on the already dystopian US-Mexico border. At that point, tech in question concerned devices like AI-integrated camera towers and robot dogs. Now, it seems the federal government is looking to kick things up a notch as it seeks companies to fulfill a contract for humanoid robots.
That’s according to Fox News, which reported that Department of Homeland Security officials have sat through at least one presentation from the humanoid robotics company Foundation.
Though it’s still pretty early for humanoid robotics as a whole — even the best still suffer from short battery life, dexterity challenges, and severe mobility limitations — the choice to test Foundation is revealing.
The company’s founder, Sankaet Pathak, has made it his goal not to build robots for utility, but explicitly for war. Earlier this year, it was revealed that Foundation had rolled out two of its ominous Phantom Mk-I humanoid robots to the frontlines of the Russo-Ukrainian war — the first time, it appears, that any humanoid robot has been deployed to an active combat theater.
In Ukraine, they ostensibly perform some kind of reconnaissance function, though it’s hard to imagine the company is cool letting its extremely expensive equipment wander around without a huge degree of hand-holding. On the US’s southern border, Pathak evidently imagines the humanoids would fill the gaps between watchtowers and drones, reducing the need for human personnel to staff the parapet.
“If drones and watchtowers were able to solve for everything, why do we still have humans at the border?” he challenged Fox.
To hear Pathak tell it, Foundation is close to bagging a deal with the government.
“We’re in conversations with almost all national security government bodies, so Air Force, Navy, Army, DHS,” he told the broadcaster. “We continue to have dialogues. We’re starting to negotiate contracts and some applications for them.”
But how serious the DHS is about any humanoids is difficult to say at the moment. Backed by Eric Trump, Foundation has ample reason to brag up its government relationship on the right-leaning Fox — simply put, a government contract is an iron-clad ticket to ride for any aspiring arms firm, let alone a startup seeking a $3 billion valuation, as Foundation currently is.
Speaking to the outlet, a DHS spokesperson said that the agency “currently does not have any non-contractual agreements, pilots, or active prime contracts with Foundation.”
Still, the fact that the federal government is even looking at such an early stage in the humanoid robot game is important. Whether bipedal robots ever patrol the US-Mexico border under Trump’s watch remains to be seen, but they clearly would if they could.
More on humanoid robots: Striking Workers Bring Car Factory to a Screeching Halt Over Humanoid Robots
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