Last month, a brief video was uploaded to YouTube that fills me equally with delight and dread. A robot with the physical build of an NFL linebacker and the agility of a wide receiver leaps from a standstill onto a waist-high wooden block. It makes a deft 180-degree hop, then crouches, backflips onto the floor, and raises its arms in triumph. Welcome to the uncanny valley.

Atlas, which its creator, Boston Dynamics, calls “the world’s most dynamic humanoid,” is designed to operate in a human environment. “Atlas’ ability to balance while performing tasks allows it to work in a large volume while occupying only a small footprint,” the company states on its website. “Stereo vision, range sensing and other sensors give Atlas the ability to manipulate objects in its environment and to travel on rough terrain. Atlas keeps its balance when jostled or pushed and can get up if it tips over.”

Atlas is like us, but in important ways, it’s much better than us. I couldn’t make the same leaps. The backflip is totally out of the question.

Machines’ ability to perform human tasks—physical, intellectual, and emotional—improved dramatically this year. “2017 was the year that the robots really, truly arrived,” Wired’s Matt Simon wrote on Tuesday. “They escaped the factory floor and started conquering big cities to deliver Mediterranean food. Self-driving cars swarmed the streets. And even bipedal robots—finally capable of not immediately falling on their faces—strolled out of the lab and into the real world. The machines are here, and it’s an exhilarating time indeed. Like, now Atlas the humanoid robot can do backflips. Backflips.”

But the advances that excite Simon—and surely many other tech bloggers and corporate efficiency experts—have caused widespread anxiety in America in 2017, if the headlines are any indication. “You Will Lose Your Job to a Robot—and Sooner Than You Think,” Mother Jones declared. The New Yorker welcomed “our robot overlords,” adding, “Once, robots assisted human workers. Now it’s the other way around.” The New York Times asked, “Will Robots Take Our Children’s Jobs?” (The worries don’t always pertain to work: “Should Children Form Emotional Bonds With Robots?,” The Atlantic asked.)