It seems like Alphabet just had disheartening news. Its robo-dogs have just been rejected by the US marines for the simple reason that they are too loud, which could give away the troops' positions to the enemies. According to US Marines spokesperson Kyle Olson, the noise levels that the robot dogs emit suggest that they couldn't be helpful in real-world operations. They're just loud robots that will give away their positions.

Google's robo-dogs, also known as "the big dog" or officially called the Legged Squad Support System (LS3), were designed in partnership with Boston Dynamics. Boston Dynamics is a robotics company that the tech giant has acquired two years ago. It was reported that the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency paid the robotics company $32 million USD with a contract to develop the LS3 for the US Marines Corps.

The LS3 was created to supposedly help US troops by carrying around 400 pounds or 181 kilograms of equipment over rugged terrain and, at the same time, also responding to verbal commands. The problem was that it was a gas-powered engine that makes too much noise. When these first versions of the LS3 came out, they were not well liked and Boston Dynamics was requested to make a smaller, quieter version and was given another $10 million USD funding to do so.

The robotics company in turn came out with a small, quiet electric version of the LS3, which was called Spot. However, the new version could only carry about 40, which isn't useful enough. It was also reportedly said that Spot doesn't have the autonomy of the original LS3 version, which means that it requires direct controller piloting. In the end, the funding was stopped and so was the project.

Both the LS3 and Spot robot projects are now shelved. As of now they are in storage, and so far there are no future experiments or upgrades planned.