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> It remains much less clear that they’re any good at anything else. They are also exceptionally good at building impressive robots.
by me_me_me 7y ago
> It remains much less clear that they’re any good at anything else.
They are also exceptionally good at building impressive robots.
- hprotagonist 7y agoNot to be too blunt here, but: besides very impressive numbers of youtube views, what have those robots accomplished, in a “we have deployed X thousand of these in the following Y situations” sense, since 2006? I’m (way more than) fine with blue sky work, and BD deserves credit for not building weapons, but at the same time there’s an impedance mismatch here.
- JackFaker 7y agoIf you're interested Adam Savage was allowed to use a 'Spot' robot for several months and shares some observations and information on actual usage on his youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-PdPtqw78k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-PdPtqw78k
- hprotagonist 7y agohttps://techcrunch.com/2019/09/24/boston-dynamics-puts-its-robotic-quadruped-spot-up-for-sale/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/24/boston-dynamics-puts-its-r... reading between the lines, as of Q4 last year they're still in _extremely_ early in any meaningful deployment. Lease-based alpha access to select customers, "hey we don't have to send a 12-man team out every month anymore", and carefully PRd information is certainly some kind of progress, but it's not anything like normal use.
- JackFaker 7y agoDefinitely not normal use, probably something akin to controlled alpha or beta testing. The only recent article a saw about the fall 2019 trials/leases was this article that didn't provide any meaningful details on usage. https://www.officer.com/command-hq/technology/article/21128615/electronic-law-enforcement-and-robotic-equipment https://www.officer.com/command-hq/technology/article/211286...