Well, maybe it sounds all dramatic, but the possibility is there

Oct 4, 2013 14:51 GMT  ·  By

And here I thought that it would be a few years, maybe a decade, before I'd have to worry about terminators breaking down my door. MIT showed me what I know.

Dramatics aside, though, MIT has actually designed and built robots that can come together and form complex shapes.

They are called M-Blocks and need no human help to assemble. Each cube has a flywheel and edge magnets, allowing them to attach to each other just by spinning into place according to whatever plan they are following.

MIT wants to write algorithms that will permit the M-Blocks to act along the lines of a hive mind.

I suppose the colorfulness of the things is a bit reassuring, but if ever they start to entertain the idea of taking over the world they'll only make the irony all the more macabre.