THE future is here – and it’s creepy.

That was the public’s official verdict, communicated with a global Mexican wave-style shudder, after footage of a new robot which mimics the movement of a dog was released last month.

In the (frankly spine-tingling) video, robot SpotMini approaches a door and pauses, unsure of how to open it. Luckily, one of its hateful machine brethren comes to its aid and turns the handle with an extendable ‘arm’ fitted where a head should be.

Social media, predictably, erupted into hysteria, with Twitter users leading the charge.

BuzzFeed’s UK news editor Alan White shared the video with the comment: “This is one of the most terrifying things I’ve seen in all my life.” His post was re-tweeted 71,000 times. Another user said robot creators Boston Dynamics will “be the end of us all, and the last remaining humans will be wondering how we didn’t see it coming.” (Not all reactions were quite this extreme, of course - writer Hugo Rifkind tweeted: “Stop pretending to be scared of robots because they can open a door. Most of the cast of Hollyoaks can probably open a door.”)

So are we witnessing the time when human history changes forever? Will our ancestors – enslaved, possibly, by enormous, prowling robotic lions – say this was the moment we could have stopped the invasion of the machines?

Well, maybe. We can already peer dimly into a time, not so very far away, when robots replace human workers en masse. Last year, think-tank The Institute for Public Policy Research said more than 10 million jobs in the UK – a third of the total – are thought to be at risk from automation within the next two decades.

In theory, our doctors, writers, soldiers, care workers and teachers could quite easily be replaced with robots.

So could our lovers. In September, the creator of an ‘intelligent’ sex robot complained after a mob of men damaged his creation at a tech fair in Barcelona. ‘Samantha’ was left “heavily soiled” as a result of the incident, during which rabid nerds groped her head and breasts.

Perhaps this sordid episode indicates the most difficult adjustment of all for humanity in the future. We’re fundamentally adaptive creatures – it’s how we’ve evolved and survived for this long. It’s likely we could find new roles for ourselves in this science fictional reality.

But it’s tough to imagine what will become of our primal longing for human contact, and harder still to believe that it could be met by robots.

I might be wrong. It's possible that our elderly will prefer being cared for by cyborgs, or that we’ll get that wobbly-legged, swooping, fiery feeling of falling in love for the latest in humanoid technology, instead of for other people. At night, maybe we’ll dispense with the needless complexities and subtleties of nervous small talk and take a Samantha of our own to bed with us.

In fact this prediction, miserable as it is, isn’t that hard to believe in. After all, we already seem to be leaning towards sterility and detachment. We use our phones to plot routes, access news and order food. There’s no need to speak, or to explain, when we can send emojis to show our feelings.

It’s likely, even logical, that our next step forward is another retreat. There’s no need to go through the dark ache of romantic heartbreak if our partner can be re-wired. We’re already emotionally wedded to technology – why not make that literal?

On the other hand, perhaps there’s something tender-hearted about our basic need to continue creating. The machines we build often take familiar and poignant forms that say much about humanity. Pioneers in the field remake dogs and beautiful women. This isn't new. In the 4th Century BC, Greek mathematician Archytas built the first ‘robot’ - a steam-powered wooden pigeon. He did this to better understand how birds fly.

Our drive – the urge to learn and build, to keep moving forward – characterises what it is to be a human being. It’s obvious in the development of our robots, but also in our desire to find cures for illnesses, or see into the furthest reaches of space. But at the same time, hidden just below the skin, we’re animals, needing the intimacy of being with others who are the same as us. It’s a wordless instinct, one that poor Samantha may now understand better than most, and maybe humankind’s duality means the robots - even the terrifying SpotMini - have more to fear from us than we do from them.