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Boston Dynamics has a new creepy dog-like robot called SpotMini
- nickm12 9y agoUgh. This article is just click-bait copy with with a link to a Youtube video and no original reporting. Just link the video directly rather than sending traffic to junk like this.
- l1n 9y agohttps://youtu.be/kgaO45SyaO4 https://youtu.be/kgaO45SyaO4 for those interested
- tomcam 9y agoGoogle made a mistake. Those droids are amazing.
- aalleavitch 9y agoYeah, you want to be in control of the company making the horrifying robots. If you aren't controlling them, somebody else is.
- slantaclaus 9y agoThose droids in the hands of Google are literally terminators. Or at least maybe that was the perception they were aiming to avoid when they disposed of the company.
- thisisit 9y ago> The sale came about in part because of the reputation Boston Dynamics had developed for making robots that were too creepy for the general public. Is this really true? Because this sounds like a stupid reason, even in part, to make a sale.
- kristofferR 9y agoHave Google sold off their whole Glass division too?
- vosper 9y agoI thought it was less about "creepy" and more about the military aspect. It's hard to "don't be evil" when you have a subsidiary building what people were describing (hyperbolically) as some kind of precursor to the Terminator. If they put some big anime eyes and a cute tail on the new one, rather than an empty face place, it'd probably go down just fine. Edit: Boston Dynamics also didn't help themselves with the "dog kicking" video. It (sort of) looks like a dog, and people were kicking it (well, not really, they were pushing it with their feet to show it good it was at balance). Obviously it's just a machine, but a lot of people saw some dudes kicking a dog.
- Aron 9y agoMy memory of this was that Google PR thought that humanoid robots might end up leading to associations with automation and job destruction. Also, it was never clear to me how much influence the PR position had vs. other reasons.
- molmalo 9y agoThere was also a big internal fight because Google thought the future robots should use wheels, but the engineers at Boston dynamics wanted to keep betting on legs. An hybrid was made that was awesome [1], but I think that in the end, both companies had a different vision for what they wanted to build. [1]
- stewbrew 9y agoDo they yet have a use case for these things that doesn't involve military?
- tzakrajs 9y agoMaybe they could be used for hikes and climbs where you could put all of your camp gear on it and have it follow behind.
- toomuchtodo 9y agoSearch and rescue.
- conductr 9y agoBasic income for donkeys!
- stewbrew 9y agoHow do would you recharge the batteries?
- red75prime 9y agoEthanol power generator and a couple of vodka bottles maybe?
- njharman 9y agoYou seriously can’t think of a use case for an all terrain, all weather robot?
- santaclaus 9y agoAutonomous delivery in cities? Amazon prime now deliveries via cute dog robot.
- stewbrew 9y agoThat's a nice research/prestige project but I question the economic viability in comparison with, e.g., delivery by bicycle. But of course, then you would have to deal with humans and that's probably not one of Amazon's strengths.
- bekman 9y agoDo they have commercially available products or just R&D?
- quantisan 9y agodirect link to video https://youtu.be/kgaO45SyaO4 https://youtu.be/kgaO45SyaO4
- fourfaces 9y agoWhat would it cost them to attach a friendly dog head and a wagging tail on this headless monster? It would make it more appealing to the public and improve PR. Imagine thousands of these things walking up and down the sidewalks of NYC. They would scare the crap out of everybody.
- Hextinium 9y agoThe problem with that is that you would get further into the uncanny valley, it would actually make the problem worse before BD gets effective enough to make it out of the uncanny valley.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- digi_owl 9y agoSony's Aibo suggests otherwise. The trick is to aim for stylistic rather than photorealistic.
- staz 9y agoYeah the previous version of SpotMini was way more cuter with it's hand/head https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf7IEVTDjng https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf7IEVTDjng
- unixhero 9y agoStop it Boston Dynamics. You're the scariest of them all.
- Rainymood 9y agoWhy is this considered "creepy"? For all I care this is super awesome. Of course there are military applications but there are also a lot of non-military applications (i.e. pallative care for elderly!)
- trophycase 9y agoBecause people know that ultimately this will be used for military/policing applications and aren't excited for an inhuman future where AI and robots dispense "justice" and keep "peace"
- mtaksrud 9y agoSeriously? Isn’t that a very dystopian view of the future?
- stuaxo 9y agoYes, but makes sense - Boston Dynamics have funding from the US military and military tech seems to end up in the hands of police forces.
- MarkMc 9y agoDystopian? Yes. Unlikely? No. Right now you have US military personnel sitting at a desk in Ohio launching missiles from a drone in Afghanistan to kill bad guys. Why wouldn't they also use killer robots when they become available?
- golergka 9y agoWhy not? There are two options here - either AI will be better at those things than humans, or worse. Why does everyone assume only one of those options is possible?
- joncrocks 9y agoRobots would arguably be better an enforcing law and order. The troubles people fear come from where the people creating and implementing law become increasingly disconnected from the enforcement, and removing people from enforcement removes a feedback from 'the ground'. A person can refuse to enforce what it perceives to be an unjust law. A union can band together and refuse to do certain things. That can happen with robots as well, but the requirements for cooperation are lower. Fewer bad actors are required to achieve a super-bad goal. Imagine the entire police force controlled by one person. The entire army. Would that be good? If you answer is no, or "maybe, it depends" then you also appreciate the unease that people feel about increased concentration of power that could come from automation.
- Geee 9y agoThis seems like they are going to sell it? I certainly hope so.
- alex_duf 9y agoIf my interpretation of the sound is correct, this is running on battery, not on an internal combustion engine. I may be mistaken but that's the first time I hear about Boston Dynamics switching to battery operated robots. That's a big step I think!
- digi_owl 9y agoEarlier models were supposed to be robotic mules for military use. This one seems to be aimed at domestic "helper dog" tasks. Thus much like a roomba they will have a charging station sitting in a corner somewhere.
- vorotato 9y agoHow DARE you call spotmini creepy!!
- kumarvvr 9y agoIt's incredibly scary to see this technology in current political and media climate of extensive and easily created distractions, smokescreens and outright lies. Some technology can wait till we humans can handle it. It might be difficult to copy nuclear bombs, but this will be easy to replicate and unleash upon the world.
- bmcusick 9y agoTell me that doesn't look like the Terminator version of the Demidog from Stranger Things 2