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> or for the benefit of mankind. Unfortunately, I don't know that I can trust any of the organizations that would have the budget to control enough of these ro

> or for the benefit of mankind. Unfortunately, I don't know that I can trust any of the organizations that would have the budget to control enough of these robots to make a difference in any direction. Which is sad to me, as I love this from a technological perspective and looking at a best case scenario.

cbozeman 6y ago
A Spot costs about $75,000, so as far as trusting the organizations... I mean, I find myself seriously considering buying one. Yes, I would likely have to add-on other modules over the course of time, but $75,000 for Spot's capabilities is actually pretty reasonable.
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  What would you use use it for if you had one?
  - cbozeman 6y ago
    Goofing off, most likely. I haven't really thought of a use case for the home, although there's literally dozens of them. I actually wonder if it could function as an auto-dog walker for my organic dog on the days when I'm too swamped with work to do so. The thought of attaching a leash to my dog and the leash to Spot while I'm indisposed is actually kind of attractive. I would have to make sure my dog has already done her business though, since I wouldn't want to be the kind of asshole that not only uses a robot to walk his dog, but also lets his dog shit on his neighbor's yard while a robot walks his dog.
    - iancmceachern 6y ago
      I wonder, would the time spent programming and integrating all this be less than just walking the dog? For me, this would defeat the purpose of having my dogs my our life. Having worked in robotics quit a bit this is a common trap. There are plenty of things that we can think of for a robot to do, but most of them would require more concessions, programming and maintenance time than it takes to just do the task, or hire folks to do it. The areas where the value prop holds up it really works well, but these kind of low value, high complexity applications like walking a dog around the neighborhood without dragging it by it's collar if the dogs knee hurts and it walks slow that day. A $75k robot arm with legs is not a completed application. We can already buy robots with the needed mobility to do things like walk dogs for far less. This is a classic hammer nail situation. I think this is the issue that BD keeps running into, they have an amazing team, amazing tech, amazing capabilities, but are still searching for that killer high value application. There are over 400k industrial robots sold every year, its a huge market. They sell well because it relatively straightforward to program and integrate them into workcells and factory lines to create value. To program and integrate one of these robots to do something so complex that it would necessitate a BD robot and not a standard industrial robot would be a huge development effort. It just doesn't hold up when we have folks that need work. The cost of one 75k robot plus two person years of engineering labor is 4 or 5 years worth of traditional labor. The value prop just isn't there until our ability to control, program and integrate these complex robots (cobot stuff) gets better.
      - ralfd 6y ago
        https://www.bostondynamics.com/spot https://www.bostondynamics.com/spot They promise "repeatable autonomous missions to gather consistent data", so my guess is programming a route and mapping terrain is reasonably easy. There is also remote control and camera access, if that could be triggered to automatically notify you (or a dog walking central command service supervising), for example when your dog is barking/complaining or resists to being dragged, it could go a long way to solve dog walking (for smaller dogs).
        iancmceachern 6y ago
        But how? How do we program it to know when to call you? Its a non-trivial problem.
      - cbozeman 6y ago
        > The value prop just isn't there until our ability to control, program and integrate these complex robots (cobot stuff) gets better. When you ultimately drill down to brass tacks though, you're left with a chicken and egg scenario. We need better programming and integration for this to be time-effective. We need more time programming and more time integrating for this to be a value proposition. You don't get there without some idiot like myself saying, "I could spend 1000 hours walking with my dog... or I could spend 1000 hours programming my robot to walk my dog..."
        iancmceachern 6y ago
        My point exactly. Its not 1000 hours and 1000 hours. Its 1000 hours and 1,000,000 hours. If we could program a complex robot like spot to do a highly complex task like walk a dog safely on an open ended "real world" in 1000 hours there are lots of other things we would do first (package delivery comes to mind). We're just not there. We have the hardware, but not the software infrastructure to apply them as is being expected here.
    - andreareina 6y ago
      According to BD Spot doesn't do well with moving objects and shouldn't be used around children, animals.
    - devchix 6y ago
      > function as an auto-dog walker for my organic dog on the days when I'm too swamped Be wary of renting to any penguin, if you do buy Spot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wrong_Trousers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wrong_Trousers
- Shared404 6y ago
  $75,000 is far enough out of reach of the average person that I think I'm standing by my statement.
helsinkiandrew 6y ago
For the price of one of those robots you can hire a minivan full of armed goons that will do exactly as you tell them todo with less supervision.
- bbarnett 6y ago
  During development, and initial per-unit sales? Sure. Once mass produced, not even close. Think of: - training costs (training grunts isn't 100% free) - pay as soldiers wait to go on missions - and here's the BIG one, medical care - and lastly? PR! PR, no more "soldiers coming home in body bags". Why, you can fight any war you want, and no one will get upset about your soldiers dying. Yet beyond that? How do you negotiate with one of these things? How do you trick them, by walking an "innocent" up to them, and blowing them up?
  - ben_w 6y ago
    > How do you trick them, by walking an "innocent" up to them, and blowing them up? Right now? Regardless of if it’s controlled by remote or by AI, the sensors are probably easier to fool than an in-situ human would be.
    - bbarnett 6y ago
      I'm not talking about fooling. Mass produced, these things would be 10k max. We're talking 10+, 15+ years out. What sort of fear do robot soldiers have? None. How does it make people "upset", if a robot soldier is blown up. Now think on the converse. Right now, suicide bombers take out soldiers, but almost always take out innocents around those soldiers. Often, children are killed. Now, imagine the locals knowing that absolutely no enemy will be killed, just a machine, but dozens or more of their friends, family may be killed. How long will suicide bombing last, when the only human casualties are the local population?
      - ben_w 6y ago
        Ok, but that’s a surprising direction to go in. Sure, this would make it less likely to use suicide bombs against soldiers — perhaps even politicians will put skin suits on the robots and use them for public appearances a-la Westworld for similar reasons — but grenades and RPGs and anti-material rifles and IEDs would likely all still be used. And £10k robots can also be used by terrorists, perhaps stolen from warehouses, perhaps hacked. That said, what worries me about terrorism is not cargo-culting shapes that look dangerous (be that robots which look like the Terminator or 3D printed guns), it’s people with imagination who know there are at least two distinct ways to make a chemical weapon using only the stuff in a normal domestic kitchen and methods taught in GCSE chemistry.
systemvoltage 6y ago
Humanity's goal should be to build AGI and let robots take over - we're doing it, willingly or unwillingly. No need to have blobs of meat hanging around. Intelligence itself is human thing. Whether it needs to have a body / physical metabolic processes to run by injesting cheetos all day, is totally absurd. Evolutionary processes have given us so much unnecessary baggage. Pure abstract intelligence is pretty damn human. There is already Neuralink and other hybird tech going on. I believe humans will willingly give up physical bodies in the long term (millenia scale). This is bound to happen. There is no way it wouldn't I believe, ofcourse in short term, we gotta worry about stuff like politics, solving hunger and world peace.
- bbarnett 6y ago
  This is bound to happen. There is no way it wouldn't I believe, of course in short term, we gotta worry about stuff like politics, solving hunger and world peace. There will never be world peace, unless humanity is no longer human, or alternately, under the boot of an all encompassing empire ruled by force. To believe otherwise, is to believe history teaches us nothing, nor our knowledge of human behaviour. To assume that we somehow have a culture which "can do this", that our modern beliefs are "enlightened" enough to allow this, is the ultimate in hubris. Sure... humanity couldn't do it before, but now? Now, we're just ever so enlightened and perfect enough to enable world peace. There are only two real ways to enable world peace. 1) Genetically engineer the entire species to become more... social. Kill or prevent any 'old style' human reproducing. End the old species. There are innumerable issues here, including "we're just messing around with what we barely comprehend". Yet our entire culture is predicated upon how the human brain works, and the human brain works more on genetics, than post-birth learning. OR 2) Take over the entire planet, killing everyone who disagrees with you, and ensuring that due to the technology involved there can NEVER be a revolution. Further, destroy and hunt down every single person which does not swear fealty ; allow no external empires to form. Ever. NOTE: I am not happy about this, yet, this is reality. Let me put this another way. You want world peace? OK! Great! First, you'll need to end all murders, thefts, all anti-social behaviour. "World peace" is denied because of the genetics that create this behaviour. They're the same problem.

cbozeman 6y ago

A Spot costs about $75,000, so as far as trusting the organizations... I mean, I find myself seriously considering buying one. Yes, I would likely have to add-on other modules over the course of time, but $75,000 for Spot's capabilities is actually pretty reasonable.

Rebelgecko 6y ago
What would you use use it for if you had one?
- cbozeman 6y ago
  Goofing off, most likely. I haven't really thought of a use case for the home, although there's literally dozens of them. I actually wonder if it could function as an auto-dog walker for my organic dog on the days when I'm too swamped with work to do so. The thought of attaching a leash to my dog and the leash to Spot while I'm indisposed is actually kind of attractive. I would have to make sure my dog has already done her business though, since I wouldn't want to be the kind of asshole that not only uses a robot to walk his dog, but also lets his dog shit on his neighbor's yard while a robot walks his dog.
  - iancmceachern 6y ago
    I wonder, would the time spent programming and integrating all this be less than just walking the dog? For me, this would defeat the purpose of having my dogs my our life. Having worked in robotics quit a bit this is a common trap. There are plenty of things that we can think of for a robot to do, but most of them would require more concessions, programming and maintenance time than it takes to just do the task, or hire folks to do it. The areas where the value prop holds up it really works well, but these kind of low value, high complexity applications like walking a dog around the neighborhood without dragging it by it's collar if the dogs knee hurts and it walks slow that day. A $75k robot arm with legs is not a completed application. We can already buy robots with the needed mobility to do things like walk dogs for far less. This is a classic hammer nail situation. I think this is the issue that BD keeps running into, they have an amazing team, amazing tech, amazing capabilities, but are still searching for that killer high value application. There are over 400k industrial robots sold every year, its a huge market. They sell well because it relatively straightforward to program and integrate them into workcells and factory lines to create value. To program and integrate one of these robots to do something so complex that it would necessitate a BD robot and not a standard industrial robot would be a huge development effort. It just doesn't hold up when we have folks that need work. The cost of one 75k robot plus two person years of engineering labor is 4 or 5 years worth of traditional labor. The value prop just isn't there until our ability to control, program and integrate these complex robots (cobot stuff) gets better.
    - ralfd 6y ago
      https://www.bostondynamics.com/spot https://www.bostondynamics.com/spot They promise "repeatable autonomous missions to gather consistent data", so my guess is programming a route and mapping terrain is reasonably easy. There is also remote control and camera access, if that could be triggered to automatically notify you (or a dog walking central command service supervising), for example when your dog is barking/complaining or resists to being dragged, it could go a long way to solve dog walking (for smaller dogs).
      - iancmceachern 6y ago
        But how? How do we program it to know when to call you? Its a non-trivial problem.
    - cbozeman 6y ago
      > The value prop just isn't there until our ability to control, program and integrate these complex robots (cobot stuff) gets better. When you ultimately drill down to brass tacks though, you're left with a chicken and egg scenario. We need better programming and integration for this to be time-effective. We need more time programming and more time integrating for this to be a value proposition. You don't get there without some idiot like myself saying, "I could spend 1000 hours walking with my dog... or I could spend 1000 hours programming my robot to walk my dog..."
      - iancmceachern 6y ago
        My point exactly. Its not 1000 hours and 1000 hours. Its 1000 hours and 1,000,000 hours. If we could program a complex robot like spot to do a highly complex task like walk a dog safely on an open ended "real world" in 1000 hours there are lots of other things we would do first (package delivery comes to mind). We're just not there. We have the hardware, but not the software infrastructure to apply them as is being expected here.
  - andreareina 6y ago
    According to BD Spot doesn't do well with moving objects and shouldn't be used around children, animals.
  - devchix 6y ago
    > function as an auto-dog walker for my organic dog on the days when I'm too swamped Be wary of renting to any penguin, if you do buy Spot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wrong_Trousers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wrong_Trousers
Shared404 6y ago
$75,000 is far enough out of reach of the average person that I think I'm standing by my statement.

helsinkiandrew 6y ago

For the price of one of those robots you can hire a minivan full of armed goons that will do exactly as you tell them todo with less supervision.

bbarnett 6y ago
During development, and initial per-unit sales? Sure. Once mass produced, not even close. Think of: - training costs (training grunts isn't 100% free) - pay as soldiers wait to go on missions - and here's the BIG one, medical care - and lastly? PR! PR, no more "soldiers coming home in body bags". Why, you can fight any war you want, and no one will get upset about your soldiers dying. Yet beyond that? How do you negotiate with one of these things? How do you trick them, by walking an "innocent" up to them, and blowing them up?
- ben_w 6y ago
  > How do you trick them, by walking an "innocent" up to them, and blowing them up? Right now? Regardless of if it’s controlled by remote or by AI, the sensors are probably easier to fool than an in-situ human would be.
  - bbarnett 6y ago
    I'm not talking about fooling. Mass produced, these things would be 10k max. We're talking 10+, 15+ years out. What sort of fear do robot soldiers have? None. How does it make people "upset", if a robot soldier is blown up. Now think on the converse. Right now, suicide bombers take out soldiers, but almost always take out innocents around those soldiers. Often, children are killed. Now, imagine the locals knowing that absolutely no enemy will be killed, just a machine, but dozens or more of their friends, family may be killed. How long will suicide bombing last, when the only human casualties are the local population?
    - ben_w 6y ago
      Ok, but that’s a surprising direction to go in. Sure, this would make it less likely to use suicide bombs against soldiers — perhaps even politicians will put skin suits on the robots and use them for public appearances a-la Westworld for similar reasons — but grenades and RPGs and anti-material rifles and IEDs would likely all still be used. And £10k robots can also be used by terrorists, perhaps stolen from warehouses, perhaps hacked. That said, what worries me about terrorism is not cargo-culting shapes that look dangerous (be that robots which look like the Terminator or 3D printed guns), it’s people with imagination who know there are at least two distinct ways to make a chemical weapon using only the stuff in a normal domestic kitchen and methods taught in GCSE chemistry.

systemvoltage 6y ago

Humanity's goal should be to build AGI and let robots take over - we're doing it, willingly or unwillingly. No need to have blobs of meat hanging around. Intelligence itself is human thing. Whether it needs to have a body / physical metabolic processes to run by injesting cheetos all day, is totally absurd. Evolutionary processes have given us so much unnecessary baggage. Pure abstract intelligence is pretty damn human. There is already Neuralink and other hybird tech going on. I believe humans will willingly give up physical bodies in the long term (millenia scale). This is bound to happen. There is no way it wouldn't I believe, ofcourse in short term, we gotta worry about stuff like politics, solving hunger and world peace.

bbarnett 6y ago
This is bound to happen. There is no way it wouldn't I believe, of course in short term, we gotta worry about stuff like politics, solving hunger and world peace. There will never be world peace, unless humanity is no longer human, or alternately, under the boot of an all encompassing empire ruled by force. To believe otherwise, is to believe history teaches us nothing, nor our knowledge of human behaviour. To assume that we somehow have a culture which "can do this", that our modern beliefs are "enlightened" enough to allow this, is the ultimate in hubris. Sure... humanity couldn't do it before, but now? Now, we're just ever so enlightened and perfect enough to enable world peace. There are only two real ways to enable world peace. 1) Genetically engineer the entire species to become more... social. Kill or prevent any 'old style' human reproducing. End the old species. There are innumerable issues here, including "we're just messing around with what we barely comprehend". Yet our entire culture is predicated upon how the human brain works, and the human brain works more on genetics, than post-birth learning. OR 2) Take over the entire planet, killing everyone who disagrees with you, and ensuring that due to the technology involved there can NEVER be a revolution. Further, destroy and hunt down every single person which does not swear fealty ; allow no external empires to form. Ever. NOTE: I am not happy about this, yet, this is reality. Let me put this another way. You want world peace? OK! Great! First, you'll need to end all murders, thefts, all anti-social behaviour. "World peace" is denied because of the genetics that create this behaviour. They're the same problem.