6 ms·

Shoot Paintballs With Boston Dynamics' Robot Spot

29 points by colinprince 6y ago

nashashmi 6y ago
Someone just had to attach a gun on a Spot. Great! This would have been cute parody if only we were living in a different time. What laws can be made to stop these kinds of autonomous actions? Do current laws cover such acts of violence?
- Larrikin 6y ago
  Why would you think that shooting and killing someone, except with a robot, would not be covered by current laws?
  - zero_deg_kevin 6y ago
    Because US laws have all sorts of rigid, incomplete, flawed, and contradicting provisions around whom is legally allowed to kill whom and under what circumstances.
    - vnchr 6y ago
      It’s generally frowned upon.
  - jedberg 6y ago
    It gets a lot trickier with an autonomous robot. Who is response for the death? The owner? What if the owner is a foreign corporation? Or even a known foreign person who has never been in the United States? If a remote crime is committed on your behalf by a robot, are you culpable? There are a lot of open questions here that need some sort of resolution.
    - Doxin 6y ago
      At some point there's someone who pressed the on button on that autonomous robot. Seems to me doing that isn't too different from pressing launch on a rocket or the trigger on a gun.
      - jedberg 6y ago
        Sure, but what if that person was never in the country and isn't subject to the country's laws? Imagine the robot is shipped, on, by DHL. DHL drops off the box on the porch and leaves. The robot opens the box itself from the inside. DHL is already indemnified as a package delivery service.
        Larrikin 6y ago
        Do you believe that if someone in Canada ships a bomb to someone in the US an investigation between the two countries wouldn't be done?
        jedberg 6y ago
        From Canada to the US? Probably. But what about a crate that come from Russia? Or Brazil? Or Saudi Arabia? There might be an investigation, but they aren't extraditing anyone!
- sjtgraham 6y ago
  Mantraps that use deadly force are illegal in the USA.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
ryanchants 6y ago
Could make for an interesting iteration on Wafaa Bilal's Domestic Tension.
fxtentacle 6y ago
Reminds me of this short film: https://youtu.be/O-2tpwW0kmU https://youtu.be/O-2tpwW0kmU Just like this, it's scary because it is believable. FWIW, here's the real military using Boston Dynamics: https://youtu.be/OYs0Rq66-U4 https://youtu.be/OYs0Rq66-U4 And here's a remote controlled sniper rifle: https://youtu.be/md_q3pKoyEI https://youtu.be/md_q3pKoyEI So I would be very surprised if nobody had combined them yet. In that sense, I think it is very good that MSCHF is bringing more attention to it. The sooner we start talking about laws to govern this tech, the lower the chance of it ending up in the wrong hands.
- itsyaboi 6y ago
  Curious, who in your opinion has the "right" hands?
  - wcarron 6y ago
    Not OP. IMO, nobody. Not a single human has the "right" hands.
  - fxtentacle 6y ago
    Not sure if there are any. But I know for sure that I wouldn't want this technology to be sold to my neighbor with anger issues ;)
- disabled 6y ago
  > The sooner we start talking about laws to govern this tech, the lower the chance of it ending up in the wrong hands. You can make your own open-sourced DIY micro version of Boston Dynamics' Robot Spot for a few hundred dollars. The design is actually very refined and the documentation is impressive. This is extremely scalable and could get out of hand quickly. Documentation: https://spotmicroai.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ https://spotmicroai.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ Source code: https://gitlab.com/custom_robots/spotmicroai https://gitlab.com/custom_robots/spotmicroai Official SpotMicroAI Slack Chat (1046 Registered Users): https://spotmicroai-inviter.herokuapp.com/ https://spotmicroai-inviter.herokuapp.com/ This example uses cheap, easily obtainable parts and has excellent movement characteristics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqLittumdvQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqLittumdvQ Here is an example of recent inverse kinematics benchmarks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqUjJDkn_ZA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqUjJDkn_ZA
SyzygistSix 6y ago
A paintball gun is the least scary thing about any of Boston Dynamics' creepy-as-fuck robots. Their robots are amazing but something about them is very unsettling at a deeply ingrained instinctual or biological level.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

29 points by colinprince 6y ago

Someone just had to attach a gun on a Spot. Great! This would have been cute parody if only we were living in a different time. What laws can be made to stop these kinds of autonomous actions? Do current laws cover such acts of violence?

Larrikin 6y ago
Why would you think that shooting and killing someone, except with a robot, would not be covered by current laws?
- zero_deg_kevin 6y ago
  Because US laws have all sorts of rigid, incomplete, flawed, and contradicting provisions around whom is legally allowed to kill whom and under what circumstances.
  - vnchr 6y ago
    It’s generally frowned upon.
- jedberg 6y ago
  It gets a lot trickier with an autonomous robot. Who is response for the death? The owner? What if the owner is a foreign corporation? Or even a known foreign person who has never been in the United States? If a remote crime is committed on your behalf by a robot, are you culpable? There are a lot of open questions here that need some sort of resolution.
  - Doxin 6y ago
    At some point there's someone who pressed the on button on that autonomous robot. Seems to me doing that isn't too different from pressing launch on a rocket or the trigger on a gun.
    - jedberg 6y ago
      Sure, but what if that person was never in the country and isn't subject to the country's laws? Imagine the robot is shipped, on, by DHL. DHL drops off the box on the porch and leaves. The robot opens the box itself from the inside. DHL is already indemnified as a package delivery service.
      - Larrikin 6y ago
        Do you believe that if someone in Canada ships a bomb to someone in the US an investigation between the two countries wouldn't be done?
        jedberg 6y ago
        From Canada to the US? Probably. But what about a crate that come from Russia? Or Brazil? Or Saudi Arabia? There might be an investigation, but they aren't extraditing anyone!
sjtgraham 6y ago
Mantraps that use deadly force are illegal in the USA.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

ryanchants 6y ago

Could make for an interesting iteration on Wafaa Bilal's Domestic Tension.

fxtentacle 6y ago

Reminds me of this short film: https://youtu.be/O-2tpwW0kmU https://youtu.be/O-2tpwW0kmU Just like this, it's scary because it is believable. FWIW, here's the real military using Boston Dynamics: https://youtu.be/OYs0Rq66-U4 https://youtu.be/OYs0Rq66-U4 And here's a remote controlled sniper rifle: https://youtu.be/md_q3pKoyEI https://youtu.be/md_q3pKoyEI So I would be very surprised if nobody had combined them yet. In that sense, I think it is very good that MSCHF is bringing more attention to it. The sooner we start talking about laws to govern this tech, the lower the chance of it ending up in the wrong hands.

itsyaboi 6y ago
Curious, who in your opinion has the "right" hands?
- wcarron 6y ago
  Not OP. IMO, nobody. Not a single human has the "right" hands.
- fxtentacle 6y ago
  Not sure if there are any. But I know for sure that I wouldn't want this technology to be sold to my neighbor with anger issues ;)
disabled 6y ago
> The sooner we start talking about laws to govern this tech, the lower the chance of it ending up in the wrong hands. You can make your own open-sourced DIY micro version of Boston Dynamics' Robot Spot for a few hundred dollars. The design is actually very refined and the documentation is impressive. This is extremely scalable and could get out of hand quickly. Documentation: https://spotmicroai.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ https://spotmicroai.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ Source code: https://gitlab.com/custom_robots/spotmicroai https://gitlab.com/custom_robots/spotmicroai Official SpotMicroAI Slack Chat (1046 Registered Users): https://spotmicroai-inviter.herokuapp.com/ https://spotmicroai-inviter.herokuapp.com/ This example uses cheap, easily obtainable parts and has excellent movement characteristics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqLittumdvQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqLittumdvQ Here is an example of recent inverse kinematics benchmarks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqUjJDkn_ZA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqUjJDkn_ZA

SyzygistSix 6y ago

A paintball gun is the least scary thing about any of Boston Dynamics' creepy-as-fuck robots. Their robots are amazing but something about them is very unsettling at a deeply ingrained instinctual or biological level.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]