A California startup showed off a 7-foot, centaur-shaped robot that can hold a chainsaw, and the reaction is mostly alarm mixed with doubt it will ever ship.

• A startup called Sataris built "Hellbot," a human-controlled robot meant to do dangerous forestry and power-line work so people don't have to.
• It's run by a person with a joystick, not AI, and the company lists safety features like fail-safe brakes and air tanks that can be pierced to stop it.
• The scary look seems intentional, meant to sidestep the creepy "almost human" feel of face-like robots.
• Worries include job losses, since one operator could run many bots, and the obvious problem that a chainsaw-wielding machine could be misused.
• Skeptics doubt it really exists at scale, calling it more of a slick website concept than a working product.

Outlook: Expect more attention-grabbing robot designs like this, but a chainsaw-carrying version is unlikely to reach real-world use anytime soon.