Leaked video reveals ‘nightmare inducing’ robot prototype in US

A leaked video has unveiled a new, wheeled robot prototype described by developers as "nightmare inducing".

US company Boston Dynamics showcased a series of quadrupedal and bipedal robots during an investor presentation, later uploaded to YouTube by venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson.

In the footage, company founder Marc Raibert describes one of the new prototypes, the wheeled "Handle" robot, as the stuff of nightmares.

"Everybody thinks we only do legged robots so no one has seen this – you guys are the first," he tells the crowd.

"This is the debut presentation of what I think will be a nightmare-inducing robot."

The robot, "an experiment in combining wheels with legs", is shown moving around at high speed, spinning and even jumping over obstacles.

Mr Raibert says it "has a lot of knowledge on how to throw its weight around" and on how to keep its balance.

The robot has been developed to move objects in warehouses but Twitter users have found it "chilling", "creepy" and even "terrifying".

Boston Dynamics was bought by Google’s parent company Alphabet in 2013.

The company is best known for BigDog, a robot designed for the US military to carry soldiers’ equipment.