3 ms·

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

by 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
  [deleted]
- 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
    - rolph 6y ago
      highly surgical strikes such as selecting one individual primary target in a room full of collateral, secondary targets
    - belval 6y ago
      While I don't disagree with you, there is a very real need to avoid collateral damage in 2020. You cannot expect support at home if your drones are murdering a bunch of kids for each "bad guy" that they eliminate. You want to be able to kill any leader anywhere and let the organization collapse due to internal power struggles. It's more fashionable.
- imtringued 6y ago
  Is this supposed to be some kind of joke? Humans have guns too and they are far faster and better marksmen than a bipedal robot.
whoisjuan 6y ago
Seems to be a capital intensive business with no clear path to commercialization. The robots developed by ABB, KUKA, Mitsubishi and similars are very different to what Boston Dynamics is trying to build. These are impressive robots but their utilitarian value is too low. An industrial robot by ABB with a clear use case in a manufacturing process costs like $80k. An impressive toy robot with no clear use case like Boston Dynamics’ Spot also costs $80k. If these robots had a clear use case besides carrying heavy stuff, BD valuation would be 5X or 10X their current valuation. Of course the real value would be to use their research and know-how on these type of high-mobility/low foot-footprint robotics into actual industrial settings and use cases. Google didn’t have any internal use case for this tech and commercializing the technology as a vendor is way out of their competence and probably not enough value there to justify extra investment in sales, supply chain, etc. SoftBank was just doing what it has been doing for the last decade which is investing in shiny things. Hyundai may be the first owner to actually have a clear use case for this tech.

by f6v 6y ago

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
[deleted]
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
  - rolph 6y ago
    highly surgical strikes such as selecting one individual primary target in a room full of collateral, secondary targets
  - belval 6y ago
    While I don't disagree with you, there is a very real need to avoid collateral damage in 2020. You cannot expect support at home if your drones are murdering a bunch of kids for each "bad guy" that they eliminate. You want to be able to kill any leader anywhere and let the organization collapse due to internal power struggles. It's more fashionable.
imtringued 6y ago
Is this supposed to be some kind of joke? Humans have guns too and they are far faster and better marksmen than a bipedal robot.

whoisjuan 6y ago

Seems to be a capital intensive business with no clear path to commercialization. The robots developed by ABB, KUKA, Mitsubishi and similars are very different to what Boston Dynamics is trying to build. These are impressive robots but their utilitarian value is too low. An industrial robot by ABB with a clear use case in a manufacturing process costs like $80k. An impressive toy robot with no clear use case like Boston Dynamics’ Spot also costs $80k. If these robots had a clear use case besides carrying heavy stuff, BD valuation would be 5X or 10X their current valuation. Of course the real value would be to use their research and know-how on these type of high-mobility/low foot-footprint robotics into actual industrial settings and use cases. Google didn’t have any internal use case for this tech and commercializing the technology as a vendor is way out of their competence and probably not enough value there to justify extra investment in sales, supply chain, etc. SoftBank was just doing what it has been doing for the last decade which is investing in shiny things. Hyundai may be the first owner to actually have a clear use case for this tech.