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HN was saying that Google acquired Boston Dynamics specifically to dismantle it. Thoughts? This was more than a random HN comment. There seemed to be several

HN was saying that Google acquired Boston Dynamics specifically to dismantle it. Thoughts? This was more than a random HN comment. There seemed to be several persuasive reasons why Google would do something like that. Note that three years ago, the general sentiment was that Boston Dynamics was pretty scary: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=boston%20dynamics%20google&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=boston%20dynamics%20google&sor... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7103433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7103433 "Technically, since their acquisition Boston Dynamics, Google is indeed in the business of war robots: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/google-buys-major-military-robot-maker-why-does-search-giant-2D11744237 http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/google-buys-major-military... " Is there a chance that Google stayed ahead of the curve and prevented Boston Dynamics from pursuing that?

jpm_sd 9y ago
This is complete nonsense. The only sense in which Boston Dynamics is building "military" robots is that no one other than DARPA was willing to fund the development of these expensive toys. They have no real military use. Andy Rubin and Larry Page were going to build "household helper" humanoid robots - no really, that was the grand vision - but it all fell apart.
jimjimjim 9y ago
I don't remember that sentiment. It sounds like general fud against google but back then people had less to worry about. Given the current political climate I would actually welcome a robot dystopia. as long as the robots were running it. not the politicians.
- visarga 9y ago
  > I would actually welcome a robot dystopia. as long as the robots were running it. not the politicians. OK, but can I program the robots?
  - jimjimjim 9y ago
    Hmm, do you frequently fail reCaptchas? If so, then yes please do.
- pavement 9y ago
  We assume that some horde of evil robots would put us out of our current misery faster and with greater efficiency than the powers that be, but what if the current powers replaced themselves with highly durable robots crafted in their own image, programmed to carry out their policies in absentia? What if they were programmed to maximize our current pains?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
CardenB 9y ago
Actually a pretty interesting theory, though it seems a bit like a futile pursuit since another company can just spring up to take their place, or their employees can simply leave. It seems more likely that when Andy Rubin was placed in charge of Google's hardware, he made a string of robotics acquisitions in a long term bet on a household robot of some sort. In a short period of time, Google acquired 8 robotics companies, many of which specialized in various forms of locomotion which could be explored in parallel to find an optimal form of movement through unstructured environments. These startups seemed to go nowhere since Rubin left not too long after the acquisitions were made. Hard to say why Rubin left at the time for sure. So it seems more like Boston Dynamics were acquired for their incredible robotic locomotion, and Google's ambition to make a household robot (code named replicant, which is the term for an android in Blade Runner. By now I assume Rubin is a big fan), would fit with the fact that Boston dynamics adapted a lot of their previous efforts into designing lightweight low range robots suitable for navigating indoor unstructured environments.
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  .
  - lern_too_spel 9y ago
    Rubin was married before Google bought Android, so that doesn't make any sense.
  - akg_67 9y ago
    Rubin was married long before he left Google. He also has couple of kids now.
  - puzzle 9y ago
    You're thinking of Hugo, not Andy.
- deevolution 9y ago
  Its Japans destiny to create replicants. Quite frankly, This aquisition is no surprise.
venachescu 9y ago
This is nerd fever dreaming conspiracy bullshit, if they were really building such scary capable war machines for the defense department they would have been bought long, long ago by a big defense contactor (and likely that would be the last we'd publically hear about it!). Fact is that Boston Dynamics does one thing, really, really well engineered dynamic locomotion. From what I understand there's very little ML/AI to it, just really good modeling and engineering. However, no one has quite figured out exactly where this technology will be most useful or practical in the near future. Even (maybe especially) when they were owned by Alphabet.
- clairity 9y ago
  > Fact is that Boston Dynamics does one thing, really, really well engineered dynamic locomotion. From what I understand there's very little ML/AI to it, just really good modeling and engineering. as someone who did a bit of graduate research in that area, i would debate the "really, really well engineered" part of that statement. they brute-forced the engineering and developed energetically expensive machines that were great as demos but not practical as products. compare how long one of their robots last vs any legged creature of comparable size, and the poor energetics are obvious. i would speculate that their company was a bet that battery packs would become light enough yet have a high enough energy density that it's robots could one day become viable products, but it doesn't seem like they're winning that bet. that's in contrast to the segway, which was a bet that computing power was fast enough to dynamically adjust and balance human scale motion with high dynamic stability. they won the technical bet, but still lost the productization bet.
  - taneq 9y ago
    Can you suggest another company that produces legged platforms with similar capabilities and better energy efficiency?
    - seanp2k2 9y ago
      I still don't understand the commercial value / applications of legged platforms to begin with. What are people using these for outside of hobbies, wooing government reps with deep pockets, and novelty?
jMyles 9y ago
And equally importantly - how can we: 1) Establish consensus in favor of disrupting and retarding any movement toward war robots (or perhaps even coming to a more affirmative defense of the three laws) 2) Carry out the direct action associated with #1 above.
mtgx 9y ago
I would hope so. Google's positive image has already declined significantly in the past few years due to its relentless chasing of more advanced tracking and data mining of user data. Becoming a country that sells war robots not just to the U.S. but also Saudi Arabia and others like it would've made me, and probably others, like it a lot less, too.
TimeToFly 9y ago
Bought it, got all the secrets, all technology, software, made connections between key people, possibly made the company dependable on Google technology then sold it. Sounds like a perfect way to handle this.

jpm_sd 9y ago

This is complete nonsense. The only sense in which Boston Dynamics is building "military" robots is that no one other than DARPA was willing to fund the development of these expensive toys. They have no real military use. Andy Rubin and Larry Page were going to build "household helper" humanoid robots - no really, that was the grand vision - but it all fell apart.

jimjimjim 9y ago

I don't remember that sentiment. It sounds like general fud against google but back then people had less to worry about. Given the current political climate I would actually welcome a robot dystopia. as long as the robots were running it. not the politicians.

visarga 9y ago
> I would actually welcome a robot dystopia. as long as the robots were running it. not the politicians. OK, but can I program the robots?
- jimjimjim 9y ago
  Hmm, do you frequently fail reCaptchas? If so, then yes please do.
pavement 9y ago
We assume that some horde of evil robots would put us out of our current misery faster and with greater efficiency than the powers that be, but what if the current powers replaced themselves with highly durable robots crafted in their own image, programmed to carry out their policies in absentia? What if they were programmed to maximize our current pains?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

CardenB 9y ago

Actually a pretty interesting theory, though it seems a bit like a futile pursuit since another company can just spring up to take their place, or their employees can simply leave. It seems more likely that when Andy Rubin was placed in charge of Google's hardware, he made a string of robotics acquisitions in a long term bet on a household robot of some sort. In a short period of time, Google acquired 8 robotics companies, many of which specialized in various forms of locomotion which could be explored in parallel to find an optimal form of movement through unstructured environments. These startups seemed to go nowhere since Rubin left not too long after the acquisitions were made. Hard to say why Rubin left at the time for sure. So it seems more like Boston Dynamics were acquired for their incredible robotic locomotion, and Google's ambition to make a household robot (code named replicant, which is the term for an android in Blade Runner. By now I assume Rubin is a big fan), would fit with the fact that Boston dynamics adapted a lot of their previous efforts into designing lightweight low range robots suitable for navigating indoor unstructured environments.

oh_sigh 9y ago
.
- lern_too_spel 9y ago
  Rubin was married before Google bought Android, so that doesn't make any sense.
- akg_67 9y ago
  Rubin was married long before he left Google. He also has couple of kids now.
- puzzle 9y ago
  You're thinking of Hugo, not Andy.
deevolution 9y ago
Its Japans destiny to create replicants. Quite frankly, This aquisition is no surprise.

venachescu 9y ago

This is nerd fever dreaming conspiracy bullshit, if they were really building such scary capable war machines for the defense department they would have been bought long, long ago by a big defense contactor (and likely that would be the last we'd publically hear about it!). Fact is that Boston Dynamics does one thing, really, really well engineered dynamic locomotion. From what I understand there's very little ML/AI to it, just really good modeling and engineering. However, no one has quite figured out exactly where this technology will be most useful or practical in the near future. Even (maybe especially) when they were owned by Alphabet.

clairity 9y ago
> Fact is that Boston Dynamics does one thing, really, really well engineered dynamic locomotion. From what I understand there's very little ML/AI to it, just really good modeling and engineering. as someone who did a bit of graduate research in that area, i would debate the "really, really well engineered" part of that statement. they brute-forced the engineering and developed energetically expensive machines that were great as demos but not practical as products. compare how long one of their robots last vs any legged creature of comparable size, and the poor energetics are obvious. i would speculate that their company was a bet that battery packs would become light enough yet have a high enough energy density that it's robots could one day become viable products, but it doesn't seem like they're winning that bet. that's in contrast to the segway, which was a bet that computing power was fast enough to dynamically adjust and balance human scale motion with high dynamic stability. they won the technical bet, but still lost the productization bet.
- taneq 9y ago
  Can you suggest another company that produces legged platforms with similar capabilities and better energy efficiency?
  - seanp2k2 9y ago
    I still don't understand the commercial value / applications of legged platforms to begin with. What are people using these for outside of hobbies, wooing government reps with deep pockets, and novelty?

jMyles 9y ago

And equally importantly - how can we: 1) Establish consensus in favor of disrupting and retarding any movement toward war robots (or perhaps even coming to a more affirmative defense of the three laws) 2) Carry out the direct action associated with #1 above.

mtgx 9y ago

I would hope so. Google's positive image has already declined significantly in the past few years due to its relentless chasing of more advanced tracking and data mining of user data. Becoming a country that sells war robots not just to the U.S. but also Saudi Arabia and others like it would've made me, and probably others, like it a lot less, too.

TimeToFly 9y ago

Bought it, got all the secrets, all technology, software, made connections between key people, possibly made the company dependable on Google technology then sold it. Sounds like a perfect way to handle this.