Footage of Spot, the robot dog created by the robotics company Boston Dynamics, tends to veer between the very cute and the completely dystopian (see: Spot dancing to BTS, compared with Spot assisting the NYPD). In a new TikTok posted by Grimes, she leans toward the former, framing the video as a “dog rescue story”.
“Found this poor dog by the side of the road. He had clearly been abused,” Grimes writes, over footage of people kicking the dog (presumably to demonstrate its unnerving ability to regain its balance). “But soon he was frolicking and his military precision was restored,” she says.
The video goes on to show the Miss Anthropocene musician dancing with Spot to a snippet of her unreleased track “Shinigami Eyes”, and following it down a set of stairs. “He’s so cute,” she adds in a caption.
Grimes’ affection for the dog shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Her partner, Elon Musk, has previously acknowledged Spot’s dancing abilities, seeming impressed when he wrote in December last year: “This is not CGI.”
Grimes also said she’d adopted two robot “puppies” named Montague and Capulet back in 2019, with both dogs making an appearance in another TikTok earlier this month. Could Spot be a new pet for X AE A-XII? Honestly, it wouldn’t be surprising (the pair’s child is named after military hardware, after all).
Revisit Dazed’s A Future World piece on Spot here, for more insight into where Boston Dynamics’ creation might end up in the future. Watch Grimes frolic with the viral robot dog below.
