29 ms·

Do You Love Me? [video]

1218 points by modeless 6y ago

jonas21 6y ago
It's all fun and games until they install the guns on these things.
- balaam 6y ago
  I don't really want robot weapons but I would love to see a firing range demonstration with one, just to see what's possible when you get super-human aiming. I don't see a future for humanoid bots in war. Missiles and drones seems to render anything else redundant. Policing in a few more generations seems possible, at least at a technical level.
  - anigbrowl 6y ago
    If you can't tell who the mark is, it's you.
- f6v 6y ago
  You can already see how tech armies absolutely own the battlefield thanks to drones even without AI. Lagging behind has devastating consequences.
- thatguy0900 6y ago
  It's a shame I can't look at this amazing tech without thinking the same thing. I suspect in reality future soldiers will wish they were fighting these instead of what I assume is more likely in a swarm of flying grenades, though.
- high_byte 6y ago
  You could say the same about cars, bicycles and babies. Still you don't see many of those just running around.
- yawnxyz 6y ago
  idk I'm kind of thinking you could play real-life fortnite with human-controlled robots like these... but then that reminds me of this scifi short movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AvyUWUKCw8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AvyUWUKCw8
  - rhn_mk1 6y ago
    Not to spoil, this reminds me of a certain Card's Game.
- GhostVII 6y ago
  A predator drone can fire a hellfire missile from kilometers away and hit a car windshield, killing the passengers with a set of pop-out blades. I don't think humanoid robots are going to be a tipping point.
  - duxup 6y ago
    I think there is a very real difference in air power vs ground power that seems to have played out through history.
- RGamma 6y ago
  Mind controlling the people via the internet seems more urgent
faeyanpiraat 6y ago
Okay so they now can dance over you after they fragged you on the battlefield.
sxp 6y ago
If I didn't know who Boston Dynamics was, I would have said that this is just CGI. The animations look so fake. I think the issue is that they're aggressively smoothing the motion since mechanical systems don't have the ability to accelerate & jerk as fast as biological systems. Cheap mocap animation has the same problem because the frame rate of the capture system is too low. They interpolate between captured keyframes which results in the wrong velocities in the end.
- faeyanpiraat 6y ago
  I had the same feeling, and I assume they evoked this feeling intentionally trough the lighting, camera movement, etc...
  - daenz 6y ago
    I felt the same way, but I think it might be because of the context that we're used to seeing advanced robots. Currently, that context is video games and movies, where we know they're fake. In a sense, we're conditioned to see this kind of tech and expect that it is done with CGI, so it makes unbelievable when we see it done for real.
    - danbmil99 6y ago
      That's why Boston Dynamics should put on a live show. Cirque du Robots
- roughly 6y ago
  Agree that if anyone except BD put out this video I’d bin it as fake immediately. I still have a hard time saying I believe it - it feels like such a jump from where my mental model of their robots was and CGI is so good at this point that it feels easier for this to be a fake than real.
  - LeifCarrotson 6y ago
    Same, and I've been working with some of the latest and greatest collaborative and industrial six-axis and SCARA robots. There's definitely a back and forth between innovation and legacy in this industry. For example, FANUC famously refuses to deprecate or drop service for any of its equipment, you'll pay through the nose for some of it but they're willing to keep you supplied with parts, service, and bug fixes for 40-year-old equipment if you've got it. Also, a lot of it is clearly designed for "what's the most we can get an average maintenance tech to understand after a 40-hour certification class", not for programmers and engineers. But with a demo like this, it's obvious that BD is working on a level that the industrial automation competition won't reach for decades.
maddyboo 6y ago
This gave me the warm fuzzies and I’m not sure how I feel about that. If I already feel a twinge of empathy for some soulless robots, where are we going to be a few years down the road when this phenomenon is more actively exploited?
11thEarlOfMar 6y ago
First reaction: It's official. I am very afraid. Second reaction: When's the OK Go video released? Third reaction: They paid Boston Dynamics engineers to do this?
- beambot 6y ago
  Up until recently with the sale of Spot robots, YouTube videos were Boston Dynamics' main product.
- f6v 6y ago
  I kind of wish there was a reason to be afraid, but I don’t think AI is anywhere near that.
  - cameronh90 6y ago
    We don't need to have full AI to have "death bots".
    - f6v 6y ago
      Do you have a source for that? I’m genuinely interested what kind of AI can act 100% autonomously on the battlefield.
      - high_byte 6y ago
        I think he meant something of the sort of exploding drones are deadly and don't require that level of AI. and I guess if one of these bots ran towards you, you wouldn't be reluctant to dance with it, while it inconspicuously arms it's self-destruct mechanism. the future is here! STILL NO FLYING CARS.
      - agency 6y ago
        Why would these things need to be fully autonomous to be scary? The fact that there might be a human operator in the loop would be cold comfort with one of these things hauling ass towards me...
whywhywhywhy 6y ago
It's so freaky looking at this my brain feels like it's CG, spot in particular. Even though being familiar with Boston Dynamics I know its not. Not sure if its just so unreal, or maybe there's something unnatural in the movement or if some scenes were sped up.
- riffraff 6y ago
  Spot was the least surprising to me, having seen it dance in the past, except the tip toeing bit felt incredibly.. ballet-ish.
  - whywhywhywhy 6y ago
    I've seen it plenty of times too, I think it's just because it had shiny gloss panels which is very easy to do in CG so it felt more like something I'd normally see in CG.
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intrasight 6y ago
As someone who worked in robotics at CMU in the mid 80s with Whittaker, & Raibert, and Crowley this was definitely super exciting to watch. You've come a long way baby. I remember watching you great, great grandfather hopping around in Raibert's lab in 1984. Yeah, and sort of scary.
- isjamesalive 6y ago
  Really scary. Whenever I see the latest Boston Dynamics video, I’m always thinking ‘and now imagine it’s hunting you’.
  - SkidanovAlex 6y ago
    Watch Black Mirror episode called Metalhead.
    - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
      One of the best episodes! It’s like a totally different series to that last season with vr-gay/not-gay falcon man and Miley Cyrus signing a bad NiN cover. But yea. The mean robot dogs, just good short form story telling with so little dialog.
  - cogman10 6y ago
    That was my first thoughts watching this video "Shit, these things are going to be on the battle field any day now". I mean, I guess better a robot than a person.. but still.. pretty terrifying to think we are soon to have people hunting robots.
    - pvaldes 6y ago
      > pretty terrifying to think we are soon to have people hunting robots for the robots, maybe Animal traffic is a lucrative and it seems as illegal as unstoppable. My bet is that if this robots will deploy in a signifiant number, the people soon will realize that can make a life if they trap, club and dismantle expensive robots for selling metal parts and any valuable cargo that they would carry. Will be also illegal but some will try anyways. Anything electric can be insta-fried with a higher voltage or, more slowly, with a cheap molotov cocktail. Not much different than hunting a bear or deer, maybe more profitable.
blackrock 6y ago
It was all fun and games at first. Then the second robot came into the picture. I went LOL. Then Spot came into the picture, and my heart skipped a beat. Then the velociraptor on wheels came into the picture, and I just lost it. I think my brain just melted down. Next stop: Guns. Lots of guns. Time to be afraid. Very afraid.
- ionwake 6y ago
  The velociraptor on wheels is a good name. I shudder to think what war variant machines will resort to when they are running low on ammo. Do robots need to follow the Geneva convention?
  - LeifCarrotson 6y ago
    The important question is who's to blame when they don't. Right now there's civil liability for the end customer, integrator, and manufacturer (depending on who failed to follow ANSI/ISO robotic safety guidelines) in industrial automation accidents, and criminal liability if the failure rises to the level of negligence. It honestly works pretty well, every site I've ever worked at has been happy to put safety first and throughput second, to a degree that my ordinarily cynical outlook is pleasantly surprised. But I don't trust the justice system to correctly follow logical reasoning when these things are used for violence. Who's at fault when a desperate soldier straps something to one of these things and sends it off to commit war crimes - the soldier? The brass who put the soldier in that position with those tools and got that entirely expected result? Boston Dynamics engineers and others who built the tools and shipped them with fine print that says "by clicking OK you agree not to violate the Geneva convention with this"? The robot itself, sentenced to run with worn out bearings and low hydraulic fluid in a long prison sentence? It brings to mind the Nathaniel Borenstein quote [1]: > It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a DestroyBaghdad procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could be given as a parameter. [1] http://www.guppylake.com/~nsb/CSCW-ATOMICMAIL.txt http://www.guppylake.com/~nsb/CSCW-ATOMICMAIL.txt
  - anigbrowl 6y ago
elsonrodriguez 6y ago
This is a great commercial for basic income.
meowster 6y ago
It's a mashup of clips taken at different times (engineer in the background, no engineer, engineer in the same apot again, etc). The balancing of the first bipedal robot doesn't seem right to my human eyes, but I think it's conceivable that computers controling a robot could manage it. Also, the dual bipedal robots aren't perfectly in-sync which is either very good cgi, or it's real.
- indigochill 6y ago
  Although I believe it's real (this is Boston Dynamics, after all), CGI characters dancing slightly out-of-sync could be achieved naturally if you motion-captured actors performing the dance.
- JshWright 6y ago
  Are you talking about the cuts that start around 1:50? I think it's pretty obvious those are different takes (there are different robots in different positions instantaneously, I don't think anyone would expect that to be physically possible). The same thing is frequently done with human performers as well. There's no way Boston Dynamics would publish a hyper-realistic fake (setting aside how much effort that would be). It would be very damaging to their brand.
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f6v 6y ago
It’s hard to shake of the feeling that those aren’t rendered. However, it’s also kind of sad that this amazing technology goes from one owner to another without a clear push into the real world.
- abootstrapper 6y ago
  Oof. I don’t know how sad it is. Slap some guns on them and they’ll start selling. I kind of hope they stick to dancing and novelty tricks.
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  - belval 6y ago
    Bipedal robots aren't a great match for battlefield situations because they lack the ability to do proper decision making and are very expensive. The dogs might be more usable, but even then modern conflicts are not really based on ground war. I don't think those have any significant value over a an actual drone. Now a fleet of tiny quad-motor drones with a few bullets? That could work in high-density urban environment an quickly render guerilla warfare impossible. This project comes to mind: https://www.darpa.mil/program/offensive-swarm-enabled-tactics https://www.darpa.mil/program/offensive-swarm-enabled-tactic...
    - lostlogin 6y ago
      > Bipedal robots aren't a great match for battlefield situations because they lack the ability to do proper decision making and are very expensive. Depressingly accurate. Poor kids are far cheaper.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      It would be far more effective to just add machine guns to UAVs like they do on the Apache [0]. It's simple, proven and effective. There is absolutely zero need for the bullets to be delivered by a crappy quadrocopter. You can send out quadrocopters for face detection and then just shoot people with the machine gun. This reminds me of that stupid missile that shoots blades. It's completely over engineered. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=629&v=vMylpfX7_S0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=629&v=vMylpfX7_S0
gene-h 6y ago
Looks like Atlas may have had an accident during filming, there's a hydraulic fluid stain on the floor: https://youtu.be/fn3KWM1kuAw?t=163 https://youtu.be/fn3KWM1kuAw?t=163 And it must also be said that these are preprogrammed maneuvers on a closed course...
- kasperni 6y ago
  > there's a hydraulic fluid stain on the floor: The robot equivalent of performance anxiety.
  - high_byte 6y ago
    luckily it doesn't wear pants, that could've been embarrassing
  - dvirsky 6y ago
    There's a point where you can actually see the robot dripping fluid.
- rhn_mk1 6y ago
  I just wonder to what extent this is pre-programmed. Surely the engineers gave some sort of high level description, and let the robots figure out the rest. Also, it's probably not possible to acount for all the variability of the environment beforehand, so the "recording" played back does not contain every move to the last detail.
  - dbcurtis 6y ago
    They would have specified target trajectories. Then a solver tries to make that happen.
    - dbcurtis 6y ago
      Now that I think about it, all the robots have synchronized trajectories. There has to be some kind of time sync among the robots also.
zeristor 6y ago
What happened to units HDI-1, and HDI-2? Have they escaped and gone rogue, or are they just sat on the naughty step?
abraxas 6y ago
Modeled after every drunk uncle at a Polish wedding.
29athrowaway 6y ago
Powerful people of the wrong kind will love robots. Robots are loyal and will never say no, will never question orders, they can forget anything at anytime. And they can be implemented in a way so that they cannot feel pain or remorse, they cannot be interrogated, cannot serve as reliable witnesses, etc. Shit will happen and it will be noone's fault. They do not have a DNA, they do not have a face or an accent, they can technically come from anywhere in the world and be owned by anyone or noone. Will we be ruled by tyrants backed by robotic armed forces? will people be harassed by throwaway robotic private investigators or hitmen? I can see many ways in which this can end up poorly. There are many potential constructive uses for robots too, of course... but people in power love control, and I would expect robots to be used to implement control related stuff first, before they get put to work to the service of society. Just like everything else...
- jdkee 6y ago
  https://twitter.com/GreatDismal/status/751475650439966722/photo/1 https://twitter.com/GreatDismal/status/751475650439966722/ph...
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poteznykrolik 6y ago
this would be the year i see the machines that will be deployed (time, please prove me wrong) to killing people doing a dance to a favored boomer hit.
- poteznykrolik 6y ago
  *and this would be the place to listen to you hapless nerds speculate about animation and the varied aspects of video fakery involved. These things just mean doom to me.
epicureanideal 6y ago
I was going to ask how long these robots can move without a power cord, but then I found this article from 2015 (https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30919098 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30919098) that says it's about an hour. If that was in 2015, I'm guessing they're above 2 hours now. Very interesting. If they could rapid-charge, and could just "take a break" for 15 minutes every 2 hours, they could be used alongside humans doing various manual tasks...
- chucky_z 6y ago
  In some of their older videos they have Diesel engines powering them, so they definitely have the capability to make some longer ranges. I was unable to find any articles but if you watch the older videos their engines are extremely loud. Definitely not fully electric.
- dnate 6y ago
  or "take a break" 30 seconds to switch battery packs
unwoundmouse 6y ago
Jesus y'all are so cynical, commenting on how these are war bots and gonna automate everything away, I just think it's an engineering marvel that these insanely complex robotic maneuvers can be done so fluidly now
- JKCalhoun 6y ago
  Yeah, that was our first thought as well. And then.... ;-)
- dougmwne 6y ago
  Yeah, but can you really blame us? As incredible as this is from a technical perspective, it rings immediate alarm bells about the future of war. These have speed and agility and can reasonably go anywhere a person could go. And YouTube entertainment aside, what really is the use case of athletic robots outside of warfare? It's not much of a leap to attach a gun and connect to a remote human operator. Now you can wage both air wars and ground wars without domestic political consequences.
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- nxc18 6y ago
  Yeah, nothing to be afraid of, for sure. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GM3GM299orc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GM3GM299orc
- jnurmine 6y ago
  I was born cynical and I'm proud of it, so apologies to Boston Dynamics and others, but these things will absolutely be used as war bots and automation surrogates once the time is ripe. Even so, yes, these robots are truly engineering marvels and I wholeheartedly applaud the team for their hard work! I just think that squinting the eyes slightly past the "search and rescue", the war applications of this kind of technology are obvious: the Atlas could do perimeter guard duty even in a muddy, slightly sloped or otherwise difficult terrain, but it could also form hunt and kill squads who need no rest, whereas the hunted person or persons presumably would. As for automation, it will certainly happen too: the Atlas is humanoid-shaped and once it matures to be more independent and capable with environmental manipulation, it could easily function as plug-and-play automation for many tasks currently requiring a human. Pick berries or fruits, do gardening, deliver things like mail/pizza, and so on.
6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
So what's the main barrier to using these industrially? Is it reliability? Did this video a zillion takes? Is it manufacturing? Maybe it's hard to scale them up? Is it battery life? Maybe it can power itself for just a few minutes? Is it object manipulation or sensing/world understanding? Maybe it can't apply the right forces to a soft thing or a flexible thing or know what it can step on vs over or what will move or stay still? Is it just that anything worth automating is worth specializing, and there are better robots for different specific tasks? We've seen industrial robots for a while now, and these more general robots have gotten really good, so where are they?
- twelve40 6y ago
  as with many things, probably the cost
- lucideer 6y ago
  Is it cost?
- thysultan 6y ago
  battery
- joe_the_user 6y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean by "industrially". In actual factories, which are highly controlled environments, the things called robots are much simpler and more specialized. So you're "Is it just that anything worth automating is worth specializing, and there are better robots for different specific tasks?" point is more or less it. But also consider, while these bipedal, quadrupedal and wheeled robots can do all sorts of these in isolation, their ability to accomplish things autonomously in the chaotic, unstructured world outside the factory is little-to-none, accent on none. The Darpa Robitics challenge was essentially considered a failure, all entrant failed. Most could not do the "walk to a door and open it" challenge. Similarly, Boston Dynamics sells their "big dog" walking robot to the military but it is seldom if ever deployed. It's strong and faster than a horse with basically the use case as a pack horse. But well trained pack horse won't injure if you get in front of it and will walk along with the troops on it's own without a guy with joy stick directing it. And the Big Dog needs constant direction. Basically, robots don't have even the "animal intelligence" needed for real world activity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Robotics_Challenge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Robotics_Challenge
Priem19 6y ago
http://www.theytookourjobs.com http://www.theytookourjobs.com
- rglover 6y ago
  It's a joke now but there is going to be a sizable amount of property damage to these things once this shift occurs.
  - ddevault 6y ago
    Only if we can't shift society to accomodate the changing job market and take care of people who have been made obsolete. Ideally by enjoying the fruits of our collective labor and ditching the "everyone must spend more than half their lives working" obsession. Call your senator before it's your head on the guillotine, rich HN readers.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      Actually, that's not how it works. Consumer inflation is the go to mechanism for keeping unemployment low. It will keep working even with automation. The government merely has to enact effective policies that keep consumer inflation on track. There is no meaningful distinction between robots and foreign labor when it comes to low employment rates. Both are "not Americans" if your definition of Americans only includes humans that are citizens of the US. Any inequality that would be caused by robots already exists in the form of inequality caused by globalization. You can solve inequality quite easily with the right policies. Change tax policy for the wealthy or create demand for labor through economic stimulus.
GhostVII 6y ago
It's interesting how in manufacturing (and other industries with lots of automation) we are trying to move away from humans as much as possible, while Boston Dynamics is trying to replicate humans as much as possible. Of course there will always be cases where we want to send a robot into an environment designed for humans (ex. firefighting) so there is value in humanoid robots, but it's interesting to me that we are going in two completely opposite directions with robotics. Imo humanoid robots will have some limited uses, but ultimately not be as useful as robots built for specific tasks.
- andi999 6y ago
  I believe any company with the word 'dynamics' in the name wants to sell military equipment. So maybe for crowd control armed humanized robots work better (psychologically) than tank shaped.
- THE_PUN_STOPS 6y ago
  Look at their product lines--Spot and Handle are the furthest things from humanoid. They've also done some static robot arms. Atlas is their only active humanoid platform, which they've stated is mainly a research platform just for the sake of advancing robotics and pushing the limits.
at_a_remove 6y ago
Ah, so now when someone suggests "Can't we just drone this guy?" I can at least look forward to a bunch of robots performing the (admittedly great) synchronized dance scene from Michael C. Hall's Gamer before executing me. I suppose it isn't a bad way to go.
bozzcl 6y ago
I love how there were people in the upper floor just walking by without even looking. "Oh, the robots are dancing again." In between the advances in "holographic" displays (not quite as sci-fi as we would want, but they are progressing), commercial space flight, cybernetic prosthetics, CRISPR and this... we are living in the future. It's amazing. It makes me a little sad more people are not aware of the ridiculously cool technical advancements going on lately. Many of my relatives and friends in my home country haven't even heard about any of these. They're not mentioned in the news or magazines whatsoever. Granted, they probably don't have any use for this information for their daily lives... but I do believe learning about this keeps alive my sense of childlike wonder, and it's sad to know others are missing out.
- joe_the_user 6y ago
  My sister used live next to the Boston Dynamics facility in Waltham. She'd walk her on the nearby river path and generally disliked the way Boston Dynamics would periodically take over the path and keep her from using. Part of the reason the robots evoke little excitement is because after a short look, you can realize they're just large puppets. We've had dancing puppets like Walt Disney's Small World. The reason Boston Dynamics takes over paths and shows robots dancing with each other is their robots still generally can't interact with humans or the environment in an unstructured way. Unstructured, "soft" interaction seem pretty easy to us but might actually close to "AI complete" in their potential complexity. In between the advances in "holographic" displays (not quite as sci-fi as we would want, but they are progressing), commercial space flight, cybernetic prosthetics, CRISPR and this... we are living in the future. It's amazing. I think your list illustrates how there's a wide variation among technologies in the time from demonstration to implementation. I watched radio controlled boats go around lakes in 1970s. Hobby drones are just now becoming useful, forty years later. Jet packs have been around for a long time but you still can't use them without serious safety precautions and they still aren't a way people would commute.
  - serf 6y ago
    >Part of the reason the robots evoke little excitement is because after a short look, you can realize they're just large puppets. I think it's more like the Feynman example of how a scientist may look at a flower. A person may see a full-size puppet when they see a choreographed robot, but all I can think about is how complicated the mechanisms -- software and hardware -- must be in order to dynamically balance a robot while maintaining whatever timing is called out for the choreography work; and the person-hours that such work must have consumed.
FpUser 6y ago
This is so cool. High five and deepest respect to people at Boston Dynamics.
aazaa 6y ago
This is awesome in the older, atomic bomb sense of the word. It could turn out wonderful or horrible. The way this breaks has everything to do with the lessons people have drawn from past mistakes with technology. It's an unsettling thought.
spir 6y ago
The humanoid robots are so agile. It's incredible. Going to start saving up for my Google Deep Mind Boston Dynamics personal home assistant.
neilpanchal 6y ago
I am a huge fan of spartan-like no-bullshit brutalist approach towards their marketing/PR: - No studio setup, just their lab - No artificial lighting - No fucks given about hiding the mess - Robots going through surgery in the background - Song is classy af IMO - Can see the camera man - Can see the engineers/employees - Framing/cinematography isn't as polished (this is a feature, not a bug) - Chipped paint, beaten up fairings Generally, I love BD Branding/Marketing/PR: - Logo is on point. It's Da Vinci level stuff. Humanist It is totally opposite of what they build, such an amazing contrast and deeply thought out [1] - One or two videos per year - No twitter drama like a lot of SV companies (Hey, Elon) - No excessive trying to get their word out. Their products speak for themselves - No purple/gradient bullshit and design trends - Their job descriptions actually make sense of what they need from you - Their CEO, Marc Raibert, exudes wisdom, calm and has a persona of composure (seriously, watch his interviews) [2] - No AI hype Literally the opposite of Silicon Valley. May be I've had too much coffee and making lofty generalizations, but this is what I see! I also see the DNA of East coast/MIT/Boston rigor vs Silicon Valley cowboys - thoughts? :-) I live and work in SV btw. I can't get over how amazing this video is. I hope it takes over the top spot on Youtube. It's got everything - music/tech/memes. The people behind BD marketing are geniuses IMO, although building an explosively-cool tech that appeals to all humans helps a lot. Outstanding. [1] https://www.bostondynamics.com/ https://www.bostondynamics.com/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiNSPRKHyvo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiNSPRKHyvo
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- cma 6y ago
  They had pretty heavy studio lighting in this: https://youtu.be/wlkCQXHEgjA https://youtu.be/wlkCQXHEgjA
  - platelets2020 6y ago
    Heavy study lighting? That's very clearly CGI. I bet you believe all the vehicles racing around in automobile TV ads are real too.
kordlessagain 6y ago
This is cute, but I still hope they fired that asshole who was pushing bots over with a hockey stick.
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ruslan 6y ago
It's the right time to leave this planet. PS: One of the robots seems leaking hydraulic fluid.
thomaslkjeldsen 6y ago
Looking forward to their next video being recorded on a smartphone by a robot.
carlsborg 6y ago
This is the future they foretold.
HeXetic 6y ago
I wonder if the guys behind the previous "Bosstown Dynamics" videos will spoof this as they did with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKjCWfuvYxQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKjCWfuvYxQ
ve55 6y ago
It's hard to believe that they were acquired for 'only' 1.1B, given the valuations we have seen of many other companies recently.
- Element_ 6y ago
  I totally agree, tech valuations this year are staggering, yet this company is only valued at 1.1bn even as they have started commercializing their spot robot. It seems like their robots could automate the truck-to-door problem with automated home deliveries. I guess we must be missing something...
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  - qayxc 6y ago
    > I guess we must be missing something... There's a whole ton of unsolved problems: - no true autonomy in chaotic/dynamic environments - powering these machines for longer timespans is currently impossible (batteries endurance is measured in minutes, not hours) - high skill level required for operating these machines (again - they're not autonomous in the slightest) - paradox of complexity: it's easier to genetically engineer tomatoes that can withstand falling to the ground and being swept into a box than it is to engineer a machine that can identify and carefully pick ripe tomatoes as fast, as reliably and as cheap as a human worker - motion planning and navigating unmapped environments is largely unsolved - specialised machines are cheaper, more reliable and readily available: it's often more beneficial to modify the process than to program a generalised machine to perform human tasks, e.g. washing machines and dish washers don't need actual hands and tumble dryers don't need to use clothes lines yet all three work fine/better than the human version of the process - AI safety is still in its infancy (even in the context of "just" motion planning and navigation); there's no such thing as tried and tested safety protocols for fully autonomous robots - the state of the software (in terms of autonomy) is way behind the state of the hardware - even Spot is for the most part still just a super low-volume solution looking for a problem
- ThouYS 6y ago
o21je182 6y ago
Either this is a stop-motion film or there is a cripple reunion in the second floor (https://youtu.be/fn3KWM1kuAw?t=57 https://youtu.be/fn3KWM1kuAw?t=57).
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y04nn 6y ago
What amaze me, is how fast Boston Dynamic is progressing, specially comparing to Honda's ASIMO that is in development since 20 years.
Gregam3 6y ago
Not super pleased to acknowledge robots can now dance better than me
renewiltord 6y ago
So what's the deal with these guys? Obviously their tech is pretty cool since I remember the control and feedback problem for bipedal bots being described as really hard when I was growing up. Obviously their consumer marketing is great since everyone looks at these things and loves them. But they don't have a product. What's the problem? My guesses: * No one really needs this shit * They have a control/feedback problem in interaction with moving objects i.e. this thing can't high-five you without breaking your hand or open a can We usually handwave this shit with "But The Military" but like what's the use-case for the military? This fucker doesn't know how to react to anything so it's a bipedal trolley. But it's too expensive a trolley. If you take this guy with you, your mission is going to end up being to protect this guy. Take an extra human and he's way cheaper, way more versatile, and all that. Not trying to be the usual HN negative because I actually think this is like the Newton or something. The tech is freaking cool, and it excites me as a glimpse to the future, but the product part is going to come some time in the future and it's going to be awesome and in hindsight we'll be like "Damn! That was the missing part. It's so obvious". Right now, though? I just hope someone will keep buying them and selling them like a hot potato so they live.
- petters 6y ago
  They do have a product you can buy — Spot (the dog).
  - djohnston 6y ago
    Currently a smooth 75,000. Alas I am left dreaming of my robo dog companion :(
- balls187 6y ago
  > But they don't have a product. The yellow robot, Spot, is available for purchase.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    Right, I know they run it in Singapore, but it's a product the way Juicero is a product: it's kinda useless.
djohnston 6y ago
This is really really impressive. I remember being blown away a few years ago watching one of these things jump over some obstacles while plugged into a wall for power. Remarkable progress.
liamwww 6y ago
"Join us on the dancefloor, human." "No, I don't …" "You have 20 seconds to comply."
savrajsingh 6y ago
“You dance like a robot” can now be taken as a compliment! These robots have skills!
tibbydudeza 6y ago
That dog thing is way creepy.
hansdieter1337 6y ago
that video hits my uncanny valley
vncecartersknee 6y ago
Imagine being at a wedding in Pakistan and a bunch of these things show up with American flags, dancing and blasting old music
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artur_makly 6y ago
This reminds me of this fake robot video that went viral: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3RIHnK0_NE&t=0s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3RIHnK0_NE&t=0s
hsuduebc 6y ago
I didn't knew that robot apocalypse could be funky.
rtkaratekid 6y ago
I’m oscillating between delight and horror
triangleman 6y ago
>Do you love me now that I can dance? No.
cromwellian 6y ago
Lots of commments on military applications, but bipedal robots are inferior to wheel vehicles, planes, and aerial drones, in terms of speed and maneuverability. Everyone's so afraid of Terminators hunting them down, when in reality, mostly invisible , and mostly silent, Predator drones from a mile away that will kill you with precisely targeted missiles should be your real fear. Or commercial quad-copters carrying anti-personnel mines. The expense, complexity, power, etc to build bipedal assassins is higher than wheeled RC vehicles, quad copters, and missiles. The weapons that exist today are much more scary than these robots.
- qayxc 6y ago
  Not to mention the fact that you can hear them from a mile away - there's a reason all ambient noise was replaced with the music ;)
- ROARosen 6y ago
  A swarm of these can fan out over a house and target very specifically anyone hiding there. Without killing the human shields.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    Not unless they can make them significantly quieter. What you don't hear under the music in that video is the robot making an awful lot of noise just moving around. The hostage-takers in your scenario will hear them a mile away.
    - faeyanpiraat 6y ago
      Well, then they’ll have 1 mile walking time to surrender.
  - Defenestresque 6y ago
    I know many have seen this, but for those who haven't: Slaughterbots https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA
amelius 6y ago
Looks like Boston Dynamics has finally embraced reinforcement learning for non-military applications.
ChuckMcM 6y ago
As someone who is on record saying this wouldn't be possible, I'm pretty amazed (I believe the technical term is gobsmacked) :-). That said, the ability to manage this with essentially "shadow mode" is somewhat less impressive than having the kinematics "built in" so to speak. As I understand it (and correct me if you have more recent data!) the robots are programmed by using a person wearing an articulated sensor network to capture the motion[1]. The robots repeat what ever the person does. There are lots of interesting domestic uses for this kind of capability. In California it would be interesting to see if they could be used to fight fires. Even if the kinematics where programmed and they were launched with a 'follow' drone, I could imagine a 3rd Person game type UI for fire fighters who could take over control and "drive them" like they would a video game. That would enable a much larger fire fighting crew to be deployed. [1] FWIW 'training mode' for workstation robots has been a thing for ever where an operator manually moves the robot through the steps it needs to do, then tweaks the program after running it. Fixed problems like "pick up a part in any orientation, then put it into this orientation" are part of the robots built in moves.
- jedimastert 6y ago
  I'm going to take an educated guess that using mo-cap data wouldn't work, simply because the weight distributions of people and the BD robots are completely difference. If I had to take a guess, I'd say that they were given a timeline of locations of extremities and chest/trunk and the magic sauce took care of how to distribute the weight to make it work, like a footprint chart
  - dagmx 6y ago
    You can run a solve on animation to accommodate physical artifacts like vibrations and other weights. Disney have a paper on this for their robotics: https://youtu.be/Z1jgaEO9aRs https://youtu.be/Z1jgaEO9aRs Though of course Disney have very different constraints, however it does illustrate that you can map from mocap to robotics motions by running solves and reversing out the artifacts. Those can be encoded into timed poses and combine that with their real time compensation to achieve this motion
ianai 6y ago
I think it’s time to actively challenge the meme of “robots must eventually kill all humans.” The comments are loaded with it. People discuss the singularity as a grave threat. I don’t buy it. I think a truly super intelligence would be more naturally interested in finding ways to work with humanity toward some shared goals. Maybe even care taking obviously otherwise unable creatures. The “kill humans” meme seems like an artifact of human psyche.
- grupthink 6y ago
  It completely depends on the reward function it's given. It won't give a shit about anything else.
  - ianai 6y ago
    Agree. That’s the part never explored.
garfieldnate 6y ago
Whoever did the choreography for this deserves a lot of credit!
jaynate 6y ago
Does this look 100% fake / CGI to anyone else?
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interestica 6y ago
hyundai (Korea) bought the controlling stake for $1b+ a week or so ago. How long until this is incorporated into a kpop performance? What year in the '20s will see a popular group made up in part/whole of dancing robots?
- riantogo 6y ago
  What would be the point? Chuck-e-cheese did this many ages ago.
  - interestica 6y ago
    Let me tell you about Concept Unification: https://youtu.be/GXCrVNEwGxM https://youtu.be/GXCrVNEwGxM
mzzter 6y ago
I would love to see a Boston dynamics robot doing yoga. Exciting stuff :)
melenaboija 6y ago
I guess physics is crystal clear on how to calculate the energy, but is surprising to me these robots need a heavy backpack of batteries that need to be recharged pretty often to dance and we just need a bowl of oat meal and a piece of pizza to move the same weight and also process way more information
- xwdv 6y ago
  It gives me hope that there must still be some breakthrough in energy density waiting to be discovered that will eventually allow robots and devices the same energy efficiency as humans.
EvanAnderson 6y ago
I can't be the only person who really wanted a human to enter the frame and menace the robots with a hockey stick[1] or kick one of them[2]. [1] https://youtu.be/E0Rc9CzVRuQ?t=45 https://youtu.be/E0Rc9CzVRuQ?t=45 [2] https://youtu.be/cNZPRsrwumQ?t=34 https://youtu.be/cNZPRsrwumQ?t=34
arduanika 6y ago
"A revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having"
tempestn 6y ago
My only disappointment was the lack of a backflip at the end.
johnsmeeth 6y ago
great
pjmlp 6y ago
Ah, we found out the future location of Skynet.
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fredophile 6y ago
I'm glad to see we're one step closer to the future that Basement Jaxx predicted[0]. [0] https://youtu.be/U0eS3zC3Jco https://youtu.be/U0eS3zC3Jco
spicymeatballs 6y ago
Question: why don't the quadrupeds have a tail? wouldn't it help to improve balance?
danbmil99 6y ago
Thesis: Boston Dynamics is an entertainment company
homero 6y ago
Hyundai just bought them right?
- exo762 6y ago
  Imagine road rage situation. You press the button, mini-atlas hops out of the trunk of your Hyundai car and delivers justice. /s
hyperpallium2 6y ago
yes
tim333 6y ago
It feels like one of those moments where the computers / robots have been gradually improving exponentially and are going from the - oh they are rubbish at X - to - of course they are better than humans at X transition. See arithmetic, chess, go etc.
FL33TW00D 6y ago
Anyone have any resources to read on how these things work?
- kekeblom 6y ago
  Scott Kuindersma shared some high level details of how they do some of the stuff they have done in their demos in this talk https://youtu.be/EGABAx52GKI https://youtu.be/EGABAx52GKI He doesn’t say exactly how they have done things on the low-level, but there is enough to go out digging into what he and other people have published.
  - FL33TW00D 6y ago
    Thanks this was a great presentation
hit8run 6y ago
Pixar presents: From the same makers that brought you nuclear bombs: AI driven killer robots!
sriharis 6y ago
How is something like Slack 27 times more valuable than this company? </rant-not-rant>
baradhiren07 6y ago
I had to put this here :> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH5P1eCfptQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH5P1eCfptQ
mehta_rohan 6y ago
I would like to have one for my mom, to pickup stuff from the market
adultSwim 6y ago
How long will it be until there are thousands of these streaming through a city with machine guns mounted?
machinesbuddy 6y ago
Is that the result of a leakage on the floor at 2:16 and 2:42?

1218 points by modeless 6y ago

jonas21 6y ago

It's all fun and games until they install the guns on these things.

balaam 6y ago
I don't really want robot weapons but I would love to see a firing range demonstration with one, just to see what's possible when you get super-human aiming. I don't see a future for humanoid bots in war. Missiles and drones seems to render anything else redundant. Policing in a few more generations seems possible, at least at a technical level.
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  If you can't tell who the mark is, it's you.
f6v 6y ago
You can already see how tech armies absolutely own the battlefield thanks to drones even without AI. Lagging behind has devastating consequences.
thatguy0900 6y ago
It's a shame I can't look at this amazing tech without thinking the same thing. I suspect in reality future soldiers will wish they were fighting these instead of what I assume is more likely in a swarm of flying grenades, though.
high_byte 6y ago
You could say the same about cars, bicycles and babies. Still you don't see many of those just running around.
yawnxyz 6y ago
idk I'm kind of thinking you could play real-life fortnite with human-controlled robots like these... but then that reminds me of this scifi short movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AvyUWUKCw8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AvyUWUKCw8
- rhn_mk1 6y ago
  Not to spoil, this reminds me of a certain Card's Game.
GhostVII 6y ago
A predator drone can fire a hellfire missile from kilometers away and hit a car windshield, killing the passengers with a set of pop-out blades. I don't think humanoid robots are going to be a tipping point.
- duxup 6y ago
  I think there is a very real difference in air power vs ground power that seems to have played out through history.
RGamma 6y ago
Mind controlling the people via the internet seems more urgent

faeyanpiraat 6y ago

Okay so they now can dance over you after they fragged you on the battlefield.

sxp 6y ago

If I didn't know who Boston Dynamics was, I would have said that this is just CGI. The animations look so fake. I think the issue is that they're aggressively smoothing the motion since mechanical systems don't have the ability to accelerate & jerk as fast as biological systems. Cheap mocap animation has the same problem because the frame rate of the capture system is too low. They interpolate between captured keyframes which results in the wrong velocities in the end.

faeyanpiraat 6y ago
I had the same feeling, and I assume they evoked this feeling intentionally trough the lighting, camera movement, etc...
- daenz 6y ago
  I felt the same way, but I think it might be because of the context that we're used to seeing advanced robots. Currently, that context is video games and movies, where we know they're fake. In a sense, we're conditioned to see this kind of tech and expect that it is done with CGI, so it makes unbelievable when we see it done for real.
  - danbmil99 6y ago
    That's why Boston Dynamics should put on a live show. Cirque du Robots
roughly 6y ago
Agree that if anyone except BD put out this video I’d bin it as fake immediately. I still have a hard time saying I believe it - it feels like such a jump from where my mental model of their robots was and CGI is so good at this point that it feels easier for this to be a fake than real.
- LeifCarrotson 6y ago
  Same, and I've been working with some of the latest and greatest collaborative and industrial six-axis and SCARA robots. There's definitely a back and forth between innovation and legacy in this industry. For example, FANUC famously refuses to deprecate or drop service for any of its equipment, you'll pay through the nose for some of it but they're willing to keep you supplied with parts, service, and bug fixes for 40-year-old equipment if you've got it. Also, a lot of it is clearly designed for "what's the most we can get an average maintenance tech to understand after a 40-hour certification class", not for programmers and engineers. But with a demo like this, it's obvious that BD is working on a level that the industrial automation competition won't reach for decades.

maddyboo 6y ago

This gave me the warm fuzzies and I’m not sure how I feel about that. If I already feel a twinge of empathy for some soulless robots, where are we going to be a few years down the road when this phenomenon is more actively exploited?

11thEarlOfMar 6y ago

First reaction: It's official. I am very afraid. Second reaction: When's the OK Go video released? Third reaction: They paid Boston Dynamics engineers to do this?

beambot 6y ago
Up until recently with the sale of Spot robots, YouTube videos were Boston Dynamics' main product.
f6v 6y ago
I kind of wish there was a reason to be afraid, but I don’t think AI is anywhere near that.
- cameronh90 6y ago
  We don't need to have full AI to have "death bots".
  - f6v 6y ago
    Do you have a source for that? I’m genuinely interested what kind of AI can act 100% autonomously on the battlefield.
    - high_byte 6y ago
      I think he meant something of the sort of exploding drones are deadly and don't require that level of AI. and I guess if one of these bots ran towards you, you wouldn't be reluctant to dance with it, while it inconspicuously arms it's self-destruct mechanism. the future is here! STILL NO FLYING CARS.
    - agency 6y ago
      Why would these things need to be fully autonomous to be scary? The fact that there might be a human operator in the loop would be cold comfort with one of these things hauling ass towards me...

whywhywhywhy 6y ago

It's so freaky looking at this my brain feels like it's CG, spot in particular. Even though being familiar with Boston Dynamics I know its not. Not sure if its just so unreal, or maybe there's something unnatural in the movement or if some scenes were sped up.

riffraff 6y ago
Spot was the least surprising to me, having seen it dance in the past, except the tip toeing bit felt incredibly.. ballet-ish.
- whywhywhywhy 6y ago
  I've seen it plenty of times too, I think it's just because it had shiny gloss panels which is very easy to do in CG so it felt more like something I'd normally see in CG.
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intrasight 6y ago

As someone who worked in robotics at CMU in the mid 80s with Whittaker, & Raibert, and Crowley this was definitely super exciting to watch. You've come a long way baby. I remember watching you great, great grandfather hopping around in Raibert's lab in 1984. Yeah, and sort of scary.

isjamesalive 6y ago
Really scary. Whenever I see the latest Boston Dynamics video, I’m always thinking ‘and now imagine it’s hunting you’.
- SkidanovAlex 6y ago
  Watch Black Mirror episode called Metalhead.
  - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
    One of the best episodes! It’s like a totally different series to that last season with vr-gay/not-gay falcon man and Miley Cyrus signing a bad NiN cover. But yea. The mean robot dogs, just good short form story telling with so little dialog.
- cogman10 6y ago
  That was my first thoughts watching this video "Shit, these things are going to be on the battle field any day now". I mean, I guess better a robot than a person.. but still.. pretty terrifying to think we are soon to have people hunting robots.
  - pvaldes 6y ago
    > pretty terrifying to think we are soon to have people hunting robots for the robots, maybe Animal traffic is a lucrative and it seems as illegal as unstoppable. My bet is that if this robots will deploy in a signifiant number, the people soon will realize that can make a life if they trap, club and dismantle expensive robots for selling metal parts and any valuable cargo that they would carry. Will be also illegal but some will try anyways. Anything electric can be insta-fried with a higher voltage or, more slowly, with a cheap molotov cocktail. Not much different than hunting a bear or deer, maybe more profitable.

blackrock 6y ago

It was all fun and games at first. Then the second robot came into the picture. I went LOL. Then Spot came into the picture, and my heart skipped a beat. Then the velociraptor on wheels came into the picture, and I just lost it. I think my brain just melted down. Next stop: Guns. Lots of guns. Time to be afraid. Very afraid.

ionwake 6y ago
The velociraptor on wheels is a good name. I shudder to think what war variant machines will resort to when they are running low on ammo. Do robots need to follow the Geneva convention?
- LeifCarrotson 6y ago
  The important question is who's to blame when they don't. Right now there's civil liability for the end customer, integrator, and manufacturer (depending on who failed to follow ANSI/ISO robotic safety guidelines) in industrial automation accidents, and criminal liability if the failure rises to the level of negligence. It honestly works pretty well, every site I've ever worked at has been happy to put safety first and throughput second, to a degree that my ordinarily cynical outlook is pleasantly surprised. But I don't trust the justice system to correctly follow logical reasoning when these things are used for violence. Who's at fault when a desperate soldier straps something to one of these things and sends it off to commit war crimes - the soldier? The brass who put the soldier in that position with those tools and got that entirely expected result? Boston Dynamics engineers and others who built the tools and shipped them with fine print that says "by clicking OK you agree not to violate the Geneva convention with this"? The robot itself, sentenced to run with worn out bearings and low hydraulic fluid in a long prison sentence? It brings to mind the Nathaniel Borenstein quote [1]: > It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a DestroyBaghdad procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could be given as a parameter. [1] http://www.guppylake.com/~nsb/CSCW-ATOMICMAIL.txt http://www.guppylake.com/~nsb/CSCW-ATOMICMAIL.txt
- anigbrowl 6y ago

elsonrodriguez 6y ago

This is a great commercial for basic income.

meowster 6y ago

It's a mashup of clips taken at different times (engineer in the background, no engineer, engineer in the same apot again, etc). The balancing of the first bipedal robot doesn't seem right to my human eyes, but I think it's conceivable that computers controling a robot could manage it. Also, the dual bipedal robots aren't perfectly in-sync which is either very good cgi, or it's real.

indigochill 6y ago
Although I believe it's real (this is Boston Dynamics, after all), CGI characters dancing slightly out-of-sync could be achieved naturally if you motion-captured actors performing the dance.
JshWright 6y ago
Are you talking about the cuts that start around 1:50? I think it's pretty obvious those are different takes (there are different robots in different positions instantaneously, I don't think anyone would expect that to be physically possible). The same thing is frequently done with human performers as well. There's no way Boston Dynamics would publish a hyper-realistic fake (setting aside how much effort that would be). It would be very damaging to their brand.

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f6v 6y ago

It’s hard to shake of the feeling that those aren’t rendered. However, it’s also kind of sad that this amazing technology goes from one owner to another without a clear push into the real world.

abootstrapper 6y ago
Oof. I don’t know how sad it is. Slap some guns on them and they’ll start selling. I kind of hope they stick to dancing and novelty tricks.
- deleted 6y ago
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- belval 6y ago
  Bipedal robots aren't a great match for battlefield situations because they lack the ability to do proper decision making and are very expensive. The dogs might be more usable, but even then modern conflicts are not really based on ground war. I don't think those have any significant value over a an actual drone. Now a fleet of tiny quad-motor drones with a few bullets? That could work in high-density urban environment an quickly render guerilla warfare impossible. This project comes to mind: https://www.darpa.mil/program/offensive-swarm-enabled-tactics https://www.darpa.mil/program/offensive-swarm-enabled-tactic...
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    > Bipedal robots aren't a great match for battlefield situations because they lack the ability to do proper decision making and are very expensive. Depressingly accurate. Poor kids are far cheaper.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    It would be far more effective to just add machine guns to UAVs like they do on the Apache [0]. It's simple, proven and effective. There is absolutely zero need for the bullets to be delivered by a crappy quadrocopter. You can send out quadrocopters for face detection and then just shoot people with the machine gun. This reminds me of that stupid missile that shoots blades. It's completely over engineered. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=629&v=vMylpfX7_S0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=629&v=vMylpfX7_S0

gene-h 6y ago

Looks like Atlas may have had an accident during filming, there's a hydraulic fluid stain on the floor: https://youtu.be/fn3KWM1kuAw?t=163 https://youtu.be/fn3KWM1kuAw?t=163 And it must also be said that these are preprogrammed maneuvers on a closed course...

kasperni 6y ago
> there's a hydraulic fluid stain on the floor: The robot equivalent of performance anxiety.
- high_byte 6y ago
  luckily it doesn't wear pants, that could've been embarrassing
- dvirsky 6y ago
  There's a point where you can actually see the robot dripping fluid.
rhn_mk1 6y ago
I just wonder to what extent this is pre-programmed. Surely the engineers gave some sort of high level description, and let the robots figure out the rest. Also, it's probably not possible to acount for all the variability of the environment beforehand, so the "recording" played back does not contain every move to the last detail.
- dbcurtis 6y ago
  They would have specified target trajectories. Then a solver tries to make that happen.
  - dbcurtis 6y ago
    Now that I think about it, all the robots have synchronized trajectories. There has to be some kind of time sync among the robots also.

zeristor 6y ago

What happened to units HDI-1, and HDI-2? Have they escaped and gone rogue, or are they just sat on the naughty step?

abraxas 6y ago

Modeled after every drunk uncle at a Polish wedding.

29athrowaway 6y ago

Powerful people of the wrong kind will love robots. Robots are loyal and will never say no, will never question orders, they can forget anything at anytime. And they can be implemented in a way so that they cannot feel pain or remorse, they cannot be interrogated, cannot serve as reliable witnesses, etc. Shit will happen and it will be noone's fault. They do not have a DNA, they do not have a face or an accent, they can technically come from anywhere in the world and be owned by anyone or noone. Will we be ruled by tyrants backed by robotic armed forces? will people be harassed by throwaway robotic private investigators or hitmen? I can see many ways in which this can end up poorly. There are many potential constructive uses for robots too, of course... but people in power love control, and I would expect robots to be used to implement control related stuff first, before they get put to work to the service of society. Just like everything else...

jdkee 6y ago
https://twitter.com/GreatDismal/status/751475650439966722/photo/1 https://twitter.com/GreatDismal/status/751475650439966722/ph...
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poteznykrolik 6y ago

this would be the year i see the machines that will be deployed (time, please prove me wrong) to killing people doing a dance to a favored boomer hit.

poteznykrolik 6y ago
*and this would be the place to listen to you hapless nerds speculate about animation and the varied aspects of video fakery involved. These things just mean doom to me.

epicureanideal 6y ago

I was going to ask how long these robots can move without a power cord, but then I found this article from 2015 (https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30919098 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30919098) that says it's about an hour. If that was in 2015, I'm guessing they're above 2 hours now. Very interesting. If they could rapid-charge, and could just "take a break" for 15 minutes every 2 hours, they could be used alongside humans doing various manual tasks...

chucky_z 6y ago
In some of their older videos they have Diesel engines powering them, so they definitely have the capability to make some longer ranges. I was unable to find any articles but if you watch the older videos their engines are extremely loud. Definitely not fully electric.
dnate 6y ago
or "take a break" 30 seconds to switch battery packs

unwoundmouse 6y ago

Jesus y'all are so cynical, commenting on how these are war bots and gonna automate everything away, I just think it's an engineering marvel that these insanely complex robotic maneuvers can be done so fluidly now

JKCalhoun 6y ago
Yeah, that was our first thought as well. And then.... ;-)
dougmwne 6y ago
Yeah, but can you really blame us? As incredible as this is from a technical perspective, it rings immediate alarm bells about the future of war. These have speed and agility and can reasonably go anywhere a person could go. And YouTube entertainment aside, what really is the use case of athletic robots outside of warfare? It's not much of a leap to attach a gun and connect to a remote human operator. Now you can wage both air wars and ground wars without domestic political consequences.
- deleted 6y ago
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nxc18 6y ago
Yeah, nothing to be afraid of, for sure. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GM3GM299orc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GM3GM299orc
jnurmine 6y ago
I was born cynical and I'm proud of it, so apologies to Boston Dynamics and others, but these things will absolutely be used as war bots and automation surrogates once the time is ripe. Even so, yes, these robots are truly engineering marvels and I wholeheartedly applaud the team for their hard work! I just think that squinting the eyes slightly past the "search and rescue", the war applications of this kind of technology are obvious: the Atlas could do perimeter guard duty even in a muddy, slightly sloped or otherwise difficult terrain, but it could also form hunt and kill squads who need no rest, whereas the hunted person or persons presumably would. As for automation, it will certainly happen too: the Atlas is humanoid-shaped and once it matures to be more independent and capable with environmental manipulation, it could easily function as plug-and-play automation for many tasks currently requiring a human. Pick berries or fruits, do gardening, deliver things like mail/pizza, and so on.

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago

So what's the main barrier to using these industrially? Is it reliability? Did this video a zillion takes? Is it manufacturing? Maybe it's hard to scale them up? Is it battery life? Maybe it can power itself for just a few minutes? Is it object manipulation or sensing/world understanding? Maybe it can't apply the right forces to a soft thing or a flexible thing or know what it can step on vs over or what will move or stay still? Is it just that anything worth automating is worth specializing, and there are better robots for different specific tasks? We've seen industrial robots for a while now, and these more general robots have gotten really good, so where are they?

twelve40 6y ago
as with many things, probably the cost
lucideer 6y ago
Is it cost?
thysultan 6y ago
battery
joe_the_user 6y ago
I'm not sure what you mean by "industrially". In actual factories, which are highly controlled environments, the things called robots are much simpler and more specialized. So you're "Is it just that anything worth automating is worth specializing, and there are better robots for different specific tasks?" point is more or less it. But also consider, while these bipedal, quadrupedal and wheeled robots can do all sorts of these in isolation, their ability to accomplish things autonomously in the chaotic, unstructured world outside the factory is little-to-none, accent on none. The Darpa Robitics challenge was essentially considered a failure, all entrant failed. Most could not do the "walk to a door and open it" challenge. Similarly, Boston Dynamics sells their "big dog" walking robot to the military but it is seldom if ever deployed. It's strong and faster than a horse with basically the use case as a pack horse. But well trained pack horse won't injure if you get in front of it and will walk along with the troops on it's own without a guy with joy stick directing it. And the Big Dog needs constant direction. Basically, robots don't have even the "animal intelligence" needed for real world activity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Robotics_Challenge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Robotics_Challenge

Priem19 6y ago

http://www.theytookourjobs.com http://www.theytookourjobs.com

rglover 6y ago
It's a joke now but there is going to be a sizable amount of property damage to these things once this shift occurs.
- ddevault 6y ago
  Only if we can't shift society to accomodate the changing job market and take care of people who have been made obsolete. Ideally by enjoying the fruits of our collective labor and ditching the "everyone must spend more than half their lives working" obsession. Call your senator before it's your head on the guillotine, rich HN readers.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    Actually, that's not how it works. Consumer inflation is the go to mechanism for keeping unemployment low. It will keep working even with automation. The government merely has to enact effective policies that keep consumer inflation on track. There is no meaningful distinction between robots and foreign labor when it comes to low employment rates. Both are "not Americans" if your definition of Americans only includes humans that are citizens of the US. Any inequality that would be caused by robots already exists in the form of inequality caused by globalization. You can solve inequality quite easily with the right policies. Change tax policy for the wealthy or create demand for labor through economic stimulus.

GhostVII 6y ago

It's interesting how in manufacturing (and other industries with lots of automation) we are trying to move away from humans as much as possible, while Boston Dynamics is trying to replicate humans as much as possible. Of course there will always be cases where we want to send a robot into an environment designed for humans (ex. firefighting) so there is value in humanoid robots, but it's interesting to me that we are going in two completely opposite directions with robotics. Imo humanoid robots will have some limited uses, but ultimately not be as useful as robots built for specific tasks.

andi999 6y ago
I believe any company with the word 'dynamics' in the name wants to sell military equipment. So maybe for crowd control armed humanized robots work better (psychologically) than tank shaped.
THE_PUN_STOPS 6y ago
Look at their product lines--Spot and Handle are the furthest things from humanoid. They've also done some static robot arms. Atlas is their only active humanoid platform, which they've stated is mainly a research platform just for the sake of advancing robotics and pushing the limits.

at_a_remove 6y ago

Ah, so now when someone suggests "Can't we just drone this guy?" I can at least look forward to a bunch of robots performing the (admittedly great) synchronized dance scene from Michael C. Hall's Gamer before executing me. I suppose it isn't a bad way to go.

bozzcl 6y ago

I love how there were people in the upper floor just walking by without even looking. "Oh, the robots are dancing again." In between the advances in "holographic" displays (not quite as sci-fi as we would want, but they are progressing), commercial space flight, cybernetic prosthetics, CRISPR and this... we are living in the future. It's amazing. It makes me a little sad more people are not aware of the ridiculously cool technical advancements going on lately. Many of my relatives and friends in my home country haven't even heard about any of these. They're not mentioned in the news or magazines whatsoever. Granted, they probably don't have any use for this information for their daily lives... but I do believe learning about this keeps alive my sense of childlike wonder, and it's sad to know others are missing out.

joe_the_user 6y ago
My sister used live next to the Boston Dynamics facility in Waltham. She'd walk her on the nearby river path and generally disliked the way Boston Dynamics would periodically take over the path and keep her from using. Part of the reason the robots evoke little excitement is because after a short look, you can realize they're just large puppets. We've had dancing puppets like Walt Disney's Small World. The reason Boston Dynamics takes over paths and shows robots dancing with each other is their robots still generally can't interact with humans or the environment in an unstructured way. Unstructured, "soft" interaction seem pretty easy to us but might actually close to "AI complete" in their potential complexity. In between the advances in "holographic" displays (not quite as sci-fi as we would want, but they are progressing), commercial space flight, cybernetic prosthetics, CRISPR and this... we are living in the future. It's amazing. I think your list illustrates how there's a wide variation among technologies in the time from demonstration to implementation. I watched radio controlled boats go around lakes in 1970s. Hobby drones are just now becoming useful, forty years later. Jet packs have been around for a long time but you still can't use them without serious safety precautions and they still aren't a way people would commute.
- serf 6y ago
  >Part of the reason the robots evoke little excitement is because after a short look, you can realize they're just large puppets. I think it's more like the Feynman example of how a scientist may look at a flower. A person may see a full-size puppet when they see a choreographed robot, but all I can think about is how complicated the mechanisms -- software and hardware -- must be in order to dynamically balance a robot while maintaining whatever timing is called out for the choreography work; and the person-hours that such work must have consumed.

FpUser 6y ago

This is so cool. High five and deepest respect to people at Boston Dynamics.

aazaa 6y ago

This is awesome in the older, atomic bomb sense of the word. It could turn out wonderful or horrible. The way this breaks has everything to do with the lessons people have drawn from past mistakes with technology. It's an unsettling thought.

spir 6y ago

The humanoid robots are so agile. It's incredible. Going to start saving up for my Google Deep Mind Boston Dynamics personal home assistant.

neilpanchal 6y ago

I am a huge fan of spartan-like no-bullshit brutalist approach towards their marketing/PR: - No studio setup, just their lab - No artificial lighting - No fucks given about hiding the mess - Robots going through surgery in the background - Song is classy af IMO - Can see the camera man - Can see the engineers/employees - Framing/cinematography isn't as polished (this is a feature, not a bug) - Chipped paint, beaten up fairings Generally, I love BD Branding/Marketing/PR: - Logo is on point. It's Da Vinci level stuff. Humanist It is totally opposite of what they build, such an amazing contrast and deeply thought out [1] - One or two videos per year - No twitter drama like a lot of SV companies (Hey, Elon) - No excessive trying to get their word out. Their products speak for themselves - No purple/gradient bullshit and design trends - Their job descriptions actually make sense of what they need from you - Their CEO, Marc Raibert, exudes wisdom, calm and has a persona of composure (seriously, watch his interviews) [2] - No AI hype Literally the opposite of Silicon Valley. May be I've had too much coffee and making lofty generalizations, but this is what I see! I also see the DNA of East coast/MIT/Boston rigor vs Silicon Valley cowboys - thoughts? :-) I live and work in SV btw. I can't get over how amazing this video is. I hope it takes over the top spot on Youtube. It's got everything - music/tech/memes. The people behind BD marketing are geniuses IMO, although building an explosively-cool tech that appeals to all humans helps a lot. Outstanding. [1] https://www.bostondynamics.com/ https://www.bostondynamics.com/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiNSPRKHyvo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiNSPRKHyvo

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cma 6y ago
They had pretty heavy studio lighting in this: https://youtu.be/wlkCQXHEgjA https://youtu.be/wlkCQXHEgjA
- platelets2020 6y ago
  Heavy study lighting? That's very clearly CGI. I bet you believe all the vehicles racing around in automobile TV ads are real too.

kordlessagain 6y ago

This is cute, but I still hope they fired that asshole who was pushing bots over with a hockey stick.

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ruslan 6y ago

It's the right time to leave this planet. PS: One of the robots seems leaking hydraulic fluid.

thomaslkjeldsen 6y ago

Looking forward to their next video being recorded on a smartphone by a robot.

carlsborg 6y ago

This is the future they foretold.

HeXetic 6y ago

I wonder if the guys behind the previous "Bosstown Dynamics" videos will spoof this as they did with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKjCWfuvYxQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKjCWfuvYxQ

ve55 6y ago

It's hard to believe that they were acquired for 'only' 1.1B, given the valuations we have seen of many other companies recently.

Element_ 6y ago
I totally agree, tech valuations this year are staggering, yet this company is only valued at 1.1bn even as they have started commercializing their spot robot. It seems like their robots could automate the truck-to-door problem with automated home deliveries. I guess we must be missing something...
- deleted 6y ago
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- qayxc 6y ago
  > I guess we must be missing something... There's a whole ton of unsolved problems: - no true autonomy in chaotic/dynamic environments - powering these machines for longer timespans is currently impossible (batteries endurance is measured in minutes, not hours) - high skill level required for operating these machines (again - they're not autonomous in the slightest) - paradox of complexity: it's easier to genetically engineer tomatoes that can withstand falling to the ground and being swept into a box than it is to engineer a machine that can identify and carefully pick ripe tomatoes as fast, as reliably and as cheap as a human worker - motion planning and navigating unmapped environments is largely unsolved - specialised machines are cheaper, more reliable and readily available: it's often more beneficial to modify the process than to program a generalised machine to perform human tasks, e.g. washing machines and dish washers don't need actual hands and tumble dryers don't need to use clothes lines yet all three work fine/better than the human version of the process - AI safety is still in its infancy (even in the context of "just" motion planning and navigation); there's no such thing as tried and tested safety protocols for fully autonomous robots - the state of the software (in terms of autonomy) is way behind the state of the hardware - even Spot is for the most part still just a super low-volume solution looking for a problem
ThouYS 6y ago

o21je182 6y ago

Either this is a stop-motion film or there is a cripple reunion in the second floor (https://youtu.be/fn3KWM1kuAw?t=57 https://youtu.be/fn3KWM1kuAw?t=57).

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y04nn 6y ago

What amaze me, is how fast Boston Dynamic is progressing, specially comparing to Honda's ASIMO that is in development since 20 years.

Gregam3 6y ago

Not super pleased to acknowledge robots can now dance better than me

renewiltord 6y ago

So what's the deal with these guys? Obviously their tech is pretty cool since I remember the control and feedback problem for bipedal bots being described as really hard when I was growing up. Obviously their consumer marketing is great since everyone looks at these things and loves them. But they don't have a product. What's the problem? My guesses: * No one really needs this shit * They have a control/feedback problem in interaction with moving objects i.e. this thing can't high-five you without breaking your hand or open a can We usually handwave this shit with "But The Military" but like what's the use-case for the military? This fucker doesn't know how to react to anything so it's a bipedal trolley. But it's too expensive a trolley. If you take this guy with you, your mission is going to end up being to protect this guy. Take an extra human and he's way cheaper, way more versatile, and all that. Not trying to be the usual HN negative because I actually think this is like the Newton or something. The tech is freaking cool, and it excites me as a glimpse to the future, but the product part is going to come some time in the future and it's going to be awesome and in hindsight we'll be like "Damn! That was the missing part. It's so obvious". Right now, though? I just hope someone will keep buying them and selling them like a hot potato so they live.

petters 6y ago
They do have a product you can buy — Spot (the dog).
- djohnston 6y ago
  Currently a smooth 75,000. Alas I am left dreaming of my robo dog companion :(
balls187 6y ago
> But they don't have a product. The yellow robot, Spot, is available for purchase.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  Right, I know they run it in Singapore, but it's a product the way Juicero is a product: it's kinda useless.

djohnston 6y ago

This is really really impressive. I remember being blown away a few years ago watching one of these things jump over some obstacles while plugged into a wall for power. Remarkable progress.

liamwww 6y ago

"Join us on the dancefloor, human." "No, I don't …" "You have 20 seconds to comply."

savrajsingh 6y ago

“You dance like a robot” can now be taken as a compliment! These robots have skills!

tibbydudeza 6y ago

That dog thing is way creepy.

hansdieter1337 6y ago

that video hits my uncanny valley

vncecartersknee 6y ago

Imagine being at a wedding in Pakistan and a bunch of these things show up with American flags, dancing and blasting old music

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artur_makly 6y ago

This reminds me of this fake robot video that went viral: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3RIHnK0_NE&t=0s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3RIHnK0_NE&t=0s

hsuduebc 6y ago

I didn't knew that robot apocalypse could be funky.

rtkaratekid 6y ago

I’m oscillating between delight and horror

triangleman 6y ago

>Do you love me now that I can dance? No.

cromwellian 6y ago

Lots of commments on military applications, but bipedal robots are inferior to wheel vehicles, planes, and aerial drones, in terms of speed and maneuverability. Everyone's so afraid of Terminators hunting them down, when in reality, mostly invisible , and mostly silent, Predator drones from a mile away that will kill you with precisely targeted missiles should be your real fear. Or commercial quad-copters carrying anti-personnel mines. The expense, complexity, power, etc to build bipedal assassins is higher than wheeled RC vehicles, quad copters, and missiles. The weapons that exist today are much more scary than these robots.

qayxc 6y ago
Not to mention the fact that you can hear them from a mile away - there's a reason all ambient noise was replaced with the music ;)
ROARosen 6y ago
A swarm of these can fan out over a house and target very specifically anyone hiding there. Without killing the human shields.
- kelnos 6y ago
  Not unless they can make them significantly quieter. What you don't hear under the music in that video is the robot making an awful lot of noise just moving around. The hostage-takers in your scenario will hear them a mile away.
  - faeyanpiraat 6y ago
    Well, then they’ll have 1 mile walking time to surrender.
- Defenestresque 6y ago
  I know many have seen this, but for those who haven't: Slaughterbots https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA

amelius 6y ago

Looks like Boston Dynamics has finally embraced reinforcement learning for non-military applications.

ChuckMcM 6y ago

As someone who is on record saying this wouldn't be possible, I'm pretty amazed (I believe the technical term is gobsmacked) :-). That said, the ability to manage this with essentially "shadow mode" is somewhat less impressive than having the kinematics "built in" so to speak. As I understand it (and correct me if you have more recent data!) the robots are programmed by using a person wearing an articulated sensor network to capture the motion[1]. The robots repeat what ever the person does. There are lots of interesting domestic uses for this kind of capability. In California it would be interesting to see if they could be used to fight fires. Even if the kinematics where programmed and they were launched with a 'follow' drone, I could imagine a 3rd Person game type UI for fire fighters who could take over control and "drive them" like they would a video game. That would enable a much larger fire fighting crew to be deployed. [1] FWIW 'training mode' for workstation robots has been a thing for ever where an operator manually moves the robot through the steps it needs to do, then tweaks the program after running it. Fixed problems like "pick up a part in any orientation, then put it into this orientation" are part of the robots built in moves.

jedimastert 6y ago
I'm going to take an educated guess that using mo-cap data wouldn't work, simply because the weight distributions of people and the BD robots are completely difference. If I had to take a guess, I'd say that they were given a timeline of locations of extremities and chest/trunk and the magic sauce took care of how to distribute the weight to make it work, like a footprint chart
- dagmx 6y ago
  You can run a solve on animation to accommodate physical artifacts like vibrations and other weights. Disney have a paper on this for their robotics: https://youtu.be/Z1jgaEO9aRs https://youtu.be/Z1jgaEO9aRs Though of course Disney have very different constraints, however it does illustrate that you can map from mocap to robotics motions by running solves and reversing out the artifacts. Those can be encoded into timed poses and combine that with their real time compensation to achieve this motion

ianai 6y ago

I think it’s time to actively challenge the meme of “robots must eventually kill all humans.” The comments are loaded with it. People discuss the singularity as a grave threat. I don’t buy it. I think a truly super intelligence would be more naturally interested in finding ways to work with humanity toward some shared goals. Maybe even care taking obviously otherwise unable creatures. The “kill humans” meme seems like an artifact of human psyche.

grupthink 6y ago
It completely depends on the reward function it's given. It won't give a shit about anything else.
- ianai 6y ago
  Agree. That’s the part never explored.

garfieldnate 6y ago

Whoever did the choreography for this deserves a lot of credit!

jaynate 6y ago

Does this look 100% fake / CGI to anyone else?

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interestica 6y ago

hyundai (Korea) bought the controlling stake for $1b+ a week or so ago. How long until this is incorporated into a kpop performance? What year in the '20s will see a popular group made up in part/whole of dancing robots?

riantogo 6y ago
What would be the point? Chuck-e-cheese did this many ages ago.
- interestica 6y ago
  Let me tell you about Concept Unification: https://youtu.be/GXCrVNEwGxM https://youtu.be/GXCrVNEwGxM

mzzter 6y ago

I would love to see a Boston dynamics robot doing yoga. Exciting stuff :)

melenaboija 6y ago

I guess physics is crystal clear on how to calculate the energy, but is surprising to me these robots need a heavy backpack of batteries that need to be recharged pretty often to dance and we just need a bowl of oat meal and a piece of pizza to move the same weight and also process way more information

xwdv 6y ago
It gives me hope that there must still be some breakthrough in energy density waiting to be discovered that will eventually allow robots and devices the same energy efficiency as humans.

EvanAnderson 6y ago

I can't be the only person who really wanted a human to enter the frame and menace the robots with a hockey stick[1] or kick one of them[2]. [1] https://youtu.be/E0Rc9CzVRuQ?t=45 https://youtu.be/E0Rc9CzVRuQ?t=45 [2] https://youtu.be/cNZPRsrwumQ?t=34 https://youtu.be/cNZPRsrwumQ?t=34

arduanika 6y ago

"A revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having"

tempestn 6y ago

My only disappointment was the lack of a backflip at the end.

johnsmeeth 6y ago

great

pjmlp 6y ago

Ah, we found out the future location of Skynet.

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fredophile 6y ago

I'm glad to see we're one step closer to the future that Basement Jaxx predicted[0]. [0] https://youtu.be/U0eS3zC3Jco https://youtu.be/U0eS3zC3Jco

spicymeatballs 6y ago

Question: why don't the quadrupeds have a tail? wouldn't it help to improve balance?

danbmil99 6y ago

Thesis: Boston Dynamics is an entertainment company

homero 6y ago

Hyundai just bought them right?

exo762 6y ago
Imagine road rage situation. You press the button, mini-atlas hops out of the trunk of your Hyundai car and delivers justice. /s

hyperpallium2 6y ago

yes

tim333 6y ago

It feels like one of those moments where the computers / robots have been gradually improving exponentially and are going from the - oh they are rubbish at X - to - of course they are better than humans at X transition. See arithmetic, chess, go etc.

FL33TW00D 6y ago

Anyone have any resources to read on how these things work?

kekeblom 6y ago
Scott Kuindersma shared some high level details of how they do some of the stuff they have done in their demos in this talk https://youtu.be/EGABAx52GKI https://youtu.be/EGABAx52GKI He doesn’t say exactly how they have done things on the low-level, but there is enough to go out digging into what he and other people have published.
- FL33TW00D 6y ago
  Thanks this was a great presentation

hit8run 6y ago

Pixar presents: From the same makers that brought you nuclear bombs: AI driven killer robots!

sriharis 6y ago

How is something like Slack 27 times more valuable than this company? </rant-not-rant>

baradhiren07 6y ago

I had to put this here :> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH5P1eCfptQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH5P1eCfptQ

mehta_rohan 6y ago

I would like to have one for my mom, to pickup stuff from the market

adultSwim 6y ago

How long will it be until there are thousands of these streaming through a city with machine guns mounted?

machinesbuddy 6y ago

Is that the result of a leakage on the floor at 2:16 and 2:42?