LIKE WITH JETPACKS and flying cars, the Power Loader from Aliens is a robot we've been promised for a long time. That'd be the exoskeleton that Sigourney Weaver donned to beat the tar out of the movie's eponymous alien Queen, of course. Jetpacks are kinda here, flying cars … almost, and now a real-life Power Loader has finally arrived, and it's orders of magnitude more impressive than the suit of fiction.

Behold the Guardian GT from Sarcos Robotics, which in all honesty is full-tilt bonkers. Bonkers in the sense that unlike the clunky Power Loader, these 7-foot-long arms replicate human motions with incredible smoothness and accuracy, each limb lifting 500 pounds, then turning around and manipulating the most delicate of objects. Watching it in action is both hypnotic and highly unsettling.

A big problem in robotics right now is manipulation. You take for granted how easy it is for you to, say, pick up a piece of paper off a table. But imagine a robot trying that with clutzy metal fingers. No matter how strong a robot may be, it's still miles away from human dexterity.