Ah, the effort to reduce the political cost of warmaking by replacing meat soldiers with metal ones. Your child will some day (soon) have the opportunity to eco-friendlily walk or ride his bike to work for a private contractor to the US Army, where he will use a joystick to operate something like this to control overseas populations within our sphere of interest.
My first thought was of Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and the terrifying mechanical hound, which scared the crap out of me. But I find this video fascinating... Not scary, just... fascinating.
Nononono I hate it and I hate the Big Dog version even more. All these things are for is carrying weapons. They don't move right, that is to say they move too naturally. They scare me.
@3: The whole point of it is that it doesn't need a joystick. I imagine an operator would just be sending it coordinates to go to and checking up on it here and there.
Peter F @ 10: I wonder if it freaks out when you pick it up? Probably just hangs the legs full length.