6 ms·

A Robotics Startup Wants to Be the Boston Dynamics of China

60 points by mcspecter 9y ago

kolbe 9y ago
It's always so amazing to see how Chinese companies can be right on the tails of US companies. They've shown an amazing ability to innovate! It only takes them a couple years to catch up, and when they do, they can produce it more cheaply because of their superior technological abilities. This is totally not just state-sponsored espionage and modern day slave labor at work.
- cavanasm 9y ago
  Seems appropriate to reference Poe's Law here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
- blopp99 9y ago
  You'd love the Shenzhen Wired UK's documentary.
  - aaron695 9y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJ5cZnoodY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJ5cZnoodY
- indubitable 9y ago
  It's extremely interesting looking at the Program For International Student Assessment (PISA) data for something like America compared to China. [1] Scroll down a bit on that page to add countries for comparison, including China. China is pulling far ahead of us in everything in terms of educational achievement. If China's 'trick' was little more than knocking off US tech and having cheap labor then every country in the world would be on their way to becoming an industrialized superpower. Their progress is even more phenomenal when you consider their recent history. Less than 60 years ago Chinese were literally starving to death by the tens of millions as the country's government decided to try out socialism. And their technological acceleration did not really begin in earnest until the late 80s. I think the fable of the tortoise and the hare if not for the fact that we can see that tortoise is certainly not exactly inching along anymore, yet we continue to mock it? [1] - https://www.compareyourcountry.org/pisa/country/USA?lg=en https://www.compareyourcountry.org/pisa/country/USA?lg=en
  - blackbagboys 9y ago
    China's PISA data is notoriously cherry-picked.
    - dilemma 9y ago
      Source
      - indubitable 9y ago
        He's likely is referencing the fact that back in 2012 the Chinese data was just from Shanghai. This was not a secret -- it was also listed as just being from Shanghai. And they took first or near first in literally everything. Shanghai, of course, is a city (a rather large one at a population of 24 million) but not China as a whole. There was extensive media coverage calling China's results completely fake and unrepresentative. The most recent data from 2015 (what I referenced) tested China as a whole. Their rankings declined, yet they remain far ahead of the US in everything except reading where we are a tiny sliver ahead of them. This received minimal media coverage. This is a general issue when media. When the media emphasizes one issue strongly, only to give minimal coverage to the revelation that they were wrong (the implication of the coverage was that China would not be a world leader if the data were 'real') - it leads to a misinformed populace.
  - germinalphrase 9y ago
    The general criticism I've heard (not about China specifically) is that the US is at a significance disadvantage by virtue of mainstreaming our special education and ELL students (I.e. all students are tested in US). This is, apparently, less true in other countries so we're not making a true apples-to-apples comparison.
  - kolbe 9y ago
    There's no mocking. When you have a docile and powerless population combined with an intelligent central planning system, it's a no brainier that it would succeed--especially within the realm of exploitation of its own people. It's just not obvious that the next level can be reached. The US is open to people being different and intellectual exploration. These are important qualities for innovation. China is draconian in its approach to making people try to become "the best" on some centrally planned linear scale. That's great for resolving the hardest math problems that have already been solved, but it's not great for thinking about problems and creating products that are outside the domain of current human knowledge.
- bsaul 9y ago
  Your snarky comment made me wonder how big a gap there is between copying the most advanced tech of the number 1 country, and innovating to actually become the number 1. Judging by the effort of so many countries to build their own "silicon valley", and the lack of any kind of result, i'd say copying is already a huge feat. I'm also ready to bet that china has done the hardest part and that we shouldn't wait too long until we're the ones trying to copy them.
  - kolbe 9y ago
    Maybe. But You could have said that 10 years ago, too. It could be that a society that doesn't even try to reward its most ambitious and brightest people, and instead focuses all of its government's efforts in protection of second/third generation deep power structures, that they will never cultivate a innovation oriented of intellectual culture. Who knows, though.
  - Symmetry 9y ago
    Successfully copying another country's technology is very hard and if you can do that you can usually start innovating when the vein runs out. The US got its industrial start by stealing British power loom designs. For many years Japan had a reputation as a bunch of copycats who couldn't innovate. I can think of lots of examples where one country tried to copy another's technology and failed to produce a successful industry. And I can think of a number which copied successfully then went on to innovate. But I'm not sure I can think of any countries which did a good job at copying technology then failed to go on to start innovating.
    - photojosh 9y ago
      And IIRC the USA's printing presses got their start by doing copyright-violating runs of European popular literature.
hodder 9y ago
They want to become an ultimately irrelevant company shelved inside a gigantic "conglomerate" and deprived of additional investment and scope? Sadly that seems to be the fate of Boston Dynamics now.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Were they really deprived of investment? Atlas and Handle were released under Google aegis, and they're pretty impressive.
  - TFortunato 9y ago
    Quick correction. Google bought Boston Dynamics at the end of 2013. Atlas was in development long before that, and publicly shown in July 2013.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      Sorry, I meant the second version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_(robot)#Atlas.2C_The_Next_Generation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_(robot)#Atlas.2C_The_Nex...
      - TFortunato 9y ago
        No worries, my fault that it didn't click that's what you meant! I read your comment and just had a moment where I was saying "I swear I saw Atlas before the google announcement", but they were close enough I thought my mind was playing tricks on me!
Animats 9y ago
It still irks me that Google/Alphabet bought all those robotics companies and ran them into the ground. Not just Boston Dynamics. Schaft, the University of Tokyo spinoff, had some great technology. They had a good all-electric humanoid robot. Bot and Dolly had paying customers and Google cut them off. Some of the perception companies they bought may have provided technology useful for the self-driving cars. (I used to be into legged locomotion. I hold a patent on slip control for legged running on rough terrain. You need active slip control to climb hills. It's from 1994; I was thinking toys, but getting the price down that low was hopeless. I was way too early. There's still no legged machine that makes money. John Deere bought the Timberjack hexapod logging machine, but killed it after four years.[1]) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pJwDZXasKU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pJwDZXasKU
- antoniuschan99 9y ago
  What if they did it on purpose to slow down the robot uprising >^<
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - jandrese 9y ago
    The robot bodies are the very last step in the uprising. If they were serious about this they would be patenting the crap out of AI fundamentals and suing everybody working the in the field.
- imposterer 9y ago
  Didn’t realize someone held a gun to the owners’ heads and forced them to sell.
  - emiliobumachar 9y ago
    We can criticize behavior that makes the word a worse place, even when it's legal and arguably ethical, can't we? Nobody is calling for jail time for all involved.
azinman2 9y ago
Is there anything they didn’t rip? Even their demo video is Boston Dynamics style...
- tensotors 9y ago
  Well the size and purpose is different in the remake.
  - azinman2 9y ago
    Not sure the purpose is much different.... it’s quite early stages for them and they’ll want to commercialize however they can.
En_gr_Student 9y ago
What if they win where goog-boston dynamics took a left turn? China is getting good at AI and robots.
- oneweekwonder 9y ago
  Any reasonable nation state that would want to guarantee their future sovereignty will be trying to get good at AI and robots. China want to do it while commercializing the product.

60 points by mcspecter 9y ago

It's always so amazing to see how Chinese companies can be right on the tails of US companies. They've shown an amazing ability to innovate! It only takes them a couple years to catch up, and when they do, they can produce it more cheaply because of their superior technological abilities. This is totally not just state-sponsored espionage and modern day slave labor at work.

cavanasm 9y ago
Seems appropriate to reference Poe's Law here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
blopp99 9y ago
You'd love the Shenzhen Wired UK's documentary.
- aaron695 9y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJ5cZnoodY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJ5cZnoodY
indubitable 9y ago
It's extremely interesting looking at the Program For International Student Assessment (PISA) data for something like America compared to China. [1] Scroll down a bit on that page to add countries for comparison, including China. China is pulling far ahead of us in everything in terms of educational achievement. If China's 'trick' was little more than knocking off US tech and having cheap labor then every country in the world would be on their way to becoming an industrialized superpower. Their progress is even more phenomenal when you consider their recent history. Less than 60 years ago Chinese were literally starving to death by the tens of millions as the country's government decided to try out socialism. And their technological acceleration did not really begin in earnest until the late 80s. I think the fable of the tortoise and the hare if not for the fact that we can see that tortoise is certainly not exactly inching along anymore, yet we continue to mock it? [1] - https://www.compareyourcountry.org/pisa/country/USA?lg=en https://www.compareyourcountry.org/pisa/country/USA?lg=en
- blackbagboys 9y ago
  China's PISA data is notoriously cherry-picked.
  - dilemma 9y ago
    Source
    - indubitable 9y ago
      He's likely is referencing the fact that back in 2012 the Chinese data was just from Shanghai. This was not a secret -- it was also listed as just being from Shanghai. And they took first or near first in literally everything. Shanghai, of course, is a city (a rather large one at a population of 24 million) but not China as a whole. There was extensive media coverage calling China's results completely fake and unrepresentative. The most recent data from 2015 (what I referenced) tested China as a whole. Their rankings declined, yet they remain far ahead of the US in everything except reading where we are a tiny sliver ahead of them. This received minimal media coverage. This is a general issue when media. When the media emphasizes one issue strongly, only to give minimal coverage to the revelation that they were wrong (the implication of the coverage was that China would not be a world leader if the data were 'real') - it leads to a misinformed populace.
- germinalphrase 9y ago
  The general criticism I've heard (not about China specifically) is that the US is at a significance disadvantage by virtue of mainstreaming our special education and ELL students (I.e. all students are tested in US). This is, apparently, less true in other countries so we're not making a true apples-to-apples comparison.
- kolbe 9y ago
  There's no mocking. When you have a docile and powerless population combined with an intelligent central planning system, it's a no brainier that it would succeed--especially within the realm of exploitation of its own people. It's just not obvious that the next level can be reached. The US is open to people being different and intellectual exploration. These are important qualities for innovation. China is draconian in its approach to making people try to become "the best" on some centrally planned linear scale. That's great for resolving the hardest math problems that have already been solved, but it's not great for thinking about problems and creating products that are outside the domain of current human knowledge.
bsaul 9y ago
Your snarky comment made me wonder how big a gap there is between copying the most advanced tech of the number 1 country, and innovating to actually become the number 1. Judging by the effort of so many countries to build their own "silicon valley", and the lack of any kind of result, i'd say copying is already a huge feat. I'm also ready to bet that china has done the hardest part and that we shouldn't wait too long until we're the ones trying to copy them.
- kolbe 9y ago
  Maybe. But You could have said that 10 years ago, too. It could be that a society that doesn't even try to reward its most ambitious and brightest people, and instead focuses all of its government's efforts in protection of second/third generation deep power structures, that they will never cultivate a innovation oriented of intellectual culture. Who knows, though.
- Symmetry 9y ago
  Successfully copying another country's technology is very hard and if you can do that you can usually start innovating when the vein runs out. The US got its industrial start by stealing British power loom designs. For many years Japan had a reputation as a bunch of copycats who couldn't innovate. I can think of lots of examples where one country tried to copy another's technology and failed to produce a successful industry. And I can think of a number which copied successfully then went on to innovate. But I'm not sure I can think of any countries which did a good job at copying technology then failed to go on to start innovating.
  - photojosh 9y ago
    And IIRC the USA's printing presses got their start by doing copyright-violating runs of European popular literature.

hodder 9y ago

They want to become an ultimately irrelevant company shelved inside a gigantic "conglomerate" and deprived of additional investment and scope? Sadly that seems to be the fate of Boston Dynamics now.

icebraining 9y ago
Were they really deprived of investment? Atlas and Handle were released under Google aegis, and they're pretty impressive.
- TFortunato 9y ago
  Quick correction. Google bought Boston Dynamics at the end of 2013. Atlas was in development long before that, and publicly shown in July 2013.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Sorry, I meant the second version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_(robot)#Atlas.2C_The_Next_Generation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_(robot)#Atlas.2C_The_Nex...
    - TFortunato 9y ago
      No worries, my fault that it didn't click that's what you meant! I read your comment and just had a moment where I was saying "I swear I saw Atlas before the google announcement", but they were close enough I thought my mind was playing tricks on me!

Animats 9y ago

It still irks me that Google/Alphabet bought all those robotics companies and ran them into the ground. Not just Boston Dynamics. Schaft, the University of Tokyo spinoff, had some great technology. They had a good all-electric humanoid robot. Bot and Dolly had paying customers and Google cut them off. Some of the perception companies they bought may have provided technology useful for the self-driving cars. (I used to be into legged locomotion. I hold a patent on slip control for legged running on rough terrain. You need active slip control to climb hills. It's from 1994; I was thinking toys, but getting the price down that low was hopeless. I was way too early. There's still no legged machine that makes money. John Deere bought the Timberjack hexapod logging machine, but killed it after four years.[1]) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pJwDZXasKU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pJwDZXasKU

antoniuschan99 9y ago
What if they did it on purpose to slow down the robot uprising >^<
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jandrese 9y ago
  The robot bodies are the very last step in the uprising. If they were serious about this they would be patenting the crap out of AI fundamentals and suing everybody working the in the field.
imposterer 9y ago
Didn’t realize someone held a gun to the owners’ heads and forced them to sell.
- emiliobumachar 9y ago
  We can criticize behavior that makes the word a worse place, even when it's legal and arguably ethical, can't we? Nobody is calling for jail time for all involved.

azinman2 9y ago

Is there anything they didn’t rip? Even their demo video is Boston Dynamics style...

tensotors 9y ago
Well the size and purpose is different in the remake.
- azinman2 9y ago
  Not sure the purpose is much different.... it’s quite early stages for them and they’ll want to commercialize however they can.

En_gr_Student 9y ago

What if they win where goog-boston dynamics took a left turn? China is getting good at AI and robots.

oneweekwonder 9y ago
Any reasonable nation state that would want to guarantee their future sovereignty will be trying to get good at AI and robots. China want to do it while commercializing the product.