Animal Rights Groups Sound Alarm Over Tech Bro’s Plan To Create Genetically Engineered War Dogs

Animal rights organizations are condemning a controversial new effort involving defense technology giant Anduril to develop genetically engineered military dogs, raising concerns about the ethics of subjecting animals to genetic modification.

The backlash follows the unveiling of Warhound, a $200 million startup conceived by Anduril founder Palmer Luckey and biotechnology entrepreneur Ben Lamm that intends to clone and genetically modify dogs for dangerous military operations, Fortune reported. The company plans to genetically alter military working dogs to improve their health and potentially enhance their physical capabilities, while Anduril will supply body armor, advanced sensors and other battlefield technology, TechCrunch reported.

“Warhound is obsolete at inception, and that makes it an incredibly cruel waste of time, money and lives,” Fleur Dawes, director of communications and international partnerships at In Defense of Animals, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Boston Dynamics’ robot dog was opening doors on video in 2018. In 2024, a Massachusetts State Police bomb squad robot found a barricaded gunman and took three bullets that could have hit an officer or a dog”

“Genetic engineering and cloning of dogs for military purposes is a very bad idea,” Stacy Lopresti-Goodman, Ph.D., director of Animal Law Education & Scholarship at the Animal Legal Defense Fund, told the DCNF. “Humans spent thousands of years breeding dogs to trust and depend on us. Genetically engineering them for warfare is a profound betrayal of that unique bond. It raises serious ethical concerns, and it can be harmful to the dogs. “

“It’s a pity that some people with enormous amounts of money have very little common sense,” PETA Senior Vice President Colleen O’Brien told the DCNF. “Genetically engineering dogs for dangerous military work is a stunningly old-fashioned idea at a time when other agencies are phasing out the use of dogs in favor of robotics, AI, and other state-of-the-art technology that can be used without putting dogs in harm’s way.”

“The only reason *Anduril*, the most advanced weapons company on the planet, would do this is because it’s cheaper than a robot to send them to war,” a post on X, which got attention from Luckey, said.

The X post is correct in pointing out that robot dogs are now a viable alternative to using real dogs as of 2026. The DCNF interviewed a manufacturer of robot dogs at the Annual Convention of the U.S. Army in Washington on Oct. 16, who explained what these new robot dogs can do.

“So what we’re looking at is the TRUST 70. Trust stands for tactical robot for unmanned security tasks,” Assaf Chaprak, the president and CEO of robot manufacturer Shifters, told the DCNF. “It’s a robot we built from the ground up in-house, completely AI-native, built for rugged applications. It can go anywhere. It can do anything. It’s an open system that can carry any payload, from sensors to kinetics [weapons] and cameras and relays and everything else.”

The dog can carry up to 30 pounds and could be equipped with machine guns, anti-tank weapons or even explosives for use in suicide missions. Using robot dogs instead of living animals could solve the ethical problems of this program, even allowing the robots to be intentionally sent on missions where the operators know the units will not return.