I don't know if this is such a huge game changer for war. I mean, we had wheels for solid ground, and machines that can fly through the air, and boats for water, and hovercrafts for ambiguous terrain. These cute dogs are ultimately not that revolutionary.
I am much, much more worried about evil applications of multirotor drones.
Anyway, all of the above is an exercise in futility without decent AI. The robot dogs can run - so what? As long as they're pretty dumb they can't do much damage.
Now, an AI running a dog chassis, or flying a quadcopter, that's an "interesting" thought.
Wheels are notoriously poor at navigating rough terrain; that's why we build roads. We could build a vehicle with wheels or treads so huge it effectively flattens anything in its way, and we do -- but for some missions (support for a squad of soldiers on foot, say) it makes sense and is much cheaper to build a small legged vehicle.
Probably not because wheels are VERY efficient at transport across smooth level terrain, and a wheeled vehicle is less easy to destabilize than a legged vehicle. So when deciding between wheels vs. legs, it will be the usual sort of engineering tradeoff: which one offers the greatest advantage for your application?
I am much, much more worried about evil applications of multirotor drones.
Anyway, all of the above is an exercise in futility without decent AI. The robot dogs can run - so what? As long as they're pretty dumb they can't do much damage.
Now, an AI running a dog chassis, or flying a quadcopter, that's an "interesting" thought.