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Boston Dynamics’ bipedal robot Atlas can now grab and toss
- amelius 4y agoMeanwhile Amazon is still trying to automate order picking. Something seems off here. Why aren't they working with Boston Dynamics?
- stirlo 4y agoBecause you don't need a bipedal robot that can jump and throw for that. You just need an arm and a standardised storage system that the arm can reach into.
- amelius 4y agoBut the point is that if BD can make a robot that can jump, grab and throw, they can also make a robot that can just grab an item and throw it in a box.
- stirlo 4y agoSure but dozens of other companies can (and do) make cheaper robots optimised for grabbing an item and throwing it in a box. Boston Dynamics specialises in complex generalist robotics and humanoids not automating logistics.
- pixl97 4y agoActually no. You've underestimated the mindboggling complexity of the human hand working together with our knowledge of the world. Think of the following. You see an egg. You have a mental model that eggs are fragile and you grasp it delicately. You see a barbell. It's extremely heavy for its size so you brace yourself and lift appropriately with a strong grip. You see a bag of chips. You know the bag is going to deform under your hand when you pick it up, but you also cannot squeeze it or you'd crush the chips, so you pick up by pinching and empty corner. You see a glass jar full of pickles. You know it must be set down gently. You see a container half full of liquid. You know if you move it fast the internal momentum of the liquid can cause the container to jerk and move unexpectedly. Even if you don't realize it when you start moving it, your mind immediately begins to compensate for this when you feel this occur. And this is only a tiny set of subconditions that your brain silently optimizes for after you've dropped countless items as a child.
- goodpoint 4y agoBecause Boston Dynamics is a weapon manufacturer with unlimited budget. Amazon needs cheap robots.
- psychphysic 4y agoI met a couple guys from NASA doing this and their robot was always overshadowed by Bboston dynamic.
- leke 4y agoIf you're British, this headline is hilarious.
- JPLeRouzic 4y agoEnglish is not my native tongue, could you kindly explain? Thanks!
- MerelyMortal 4y agoNot British, but I'm guessing that "grab and toss" is a colloquial euphemism.
- jetbooster 4y agoAm British, the guy above might be confused, "toss off" and "tosser" are euphemisms for masturbating and masturbator respectively, but "toss" on it's own has no such connotations, at least in any regional dialect I am aware of.
- JPLeRouzic 4y agoAh ah! Thanks to both of you!
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago[dead]
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoNow an Atlas can do everything my delivery guy can do, including break my fragile shipments by throwing them at my front door!
- Havoc 4y agoThose motions are looking insanely smooth and versatile already even if pre-programmed
- lvl102 4y agoBD is making breakthroughs. Son/Softbank selling it to Hyundai will be one of the biggest tip to the Korean manufacturing scene. I am sure Elon Musk would have rather bought BD (40 times over) instead of burning $44B on Twitter. It’s also why he faked his stupid robot launch shortly after the BD acquisition.
- InCityDreams 4y agoLet me know when it can caary weapons and kill 'the enemy ', the I'll start caring.
- kharak 4y agoSomething I like to understand: Is every single movement pre-programmed? Or does the Atlas interpret more general commands, such as "move to point b, grab rectangular object a, move to point c, throw object a to position d"?
- HarHarVeryFunny 4y agoThe latter. The robot is able to balance by itself during complex dynamic movements, has it's own vision system to know where to plan to put its feet, etc. What it doesn't have is any intelligence - it's not making any high level decisions, only these type of low level foot/limb placement/movement and balance decisions necessary to execute the sequence of moves it has been choreographed to execute. Maybe not so much different than an accomplished ballet dancer faithfully executing a choreographed dance - the overall plan is fixed (even if the dancer could change it), but there's still considerable skills needed to execute the sequence! I believe there's a difference between different Boston Dynamics robots in terms of degree of autonomy though - how high level the "choreographed" instructions can be. Their "Spot" dog-like robot seems more capable in this regard than the humanoid "Atlas", despite Atlas being much more impressive in terms of dynamic balance etc.
- kaba0 4y agoWell, in a way this is the core/low-level plumbing on which further abstractions can be built. This is an essential and very complex problem in and of itself, that’s why I dislike comments like “it is preprogrammed”. Adding “dumb” intelligence on top is not too hard. (Of course, the holy grail would be AGI on top)
- HarHarVeryFunny 4y agoYes, Atlas is extremely impressive. There's a huge difference between choreographed ("do a backflip off the crate onto the floor") and being "preprogrammed" to do everything - it's obviously extremely adaptive or it would not be able to do these dynamic moves in real world conditions, or handle being kicked/shoved around in the way Boston Dynamics like to abuse their robots! I'm not sure of the utility of Atlas as a form factor though. It's too mechanically complex to ever be cheap or expendable. The humanoid form factor also gives expectations that it should be intelligent, but even when we do eventually figure AGI out, it'll probably be decades later (if ever!) that we get the power requirements down to the point it could be deployed in a battery powered device.
- seydor 4y agoA lot of progress in cartoonish robots but worlds agriculture largely depends on cheap hands
- VoodooJuJu 4y agoI think I'll just ask my (human) grunt coworker to hand me my tools, a man who: 1. is cheap at $11/hr 2. is voice-activated (with no pre-programming required!) 3. is much better company ...but thanks.
- MerelyMortal 4y ago4. requires food, water, sleep 5. is a liability in dangerous jobs (large payout, bad publicity, etc if something goes wrong and is injuried) 6. needs vacation, weekends off, has friends and family, etc — can't go on a one-way trip into space for example.
- rexreed 4y agoA VC once told me that the best thing that Boston Dynamics makes are viral videos. Founded in 1992 with three major corporate owners who couldn't figure out how to monetize their R&D. As a University lab it would be grant funded.
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y agoThis video is so impressive that when I first saw it while scrolling through Twitter I thought it was CG
- IlPeach 4y agoRelevant behind the scenes https://youtu.be/XPVC4IyRTG8 https://youtu.be/XPVC4IyRTG8
- roryisok 4y agoSuch a hilarious use-case. Like someone would pay to for a Boston Dynamics Atlas robot, and then put it to work on construction, as a gopher.
- russellbeattie 4y agoI wish Boston Dynamics would put some googly eyes on their robots or find some Japanese engineers to help design them or something. The Skynet vibes from their videos are always off the charts.
- trynewideas 4y agoI'm always happy to see them give Auralnauts some new footage to play with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAmyZP-qbTE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAmyZP-qbTE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAmfJgqw3oU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAmfJgqw3oU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFtUHVgw-gQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFtUHVgw-gQ
- metadat 4y agoHow long until Construction Bot can build me a house? I wonder what the programming workflow was comprised of to make the robot do all the moves in this video. Edit: Thanks trekkie1024, I'd watched bits of it but this confirms that the process involves choreographing every little detail. Guess it'll be awhile before generalized solutions become even a remote possibility. Could be a long while.
- trekkie1024 4y agoThis might answer your second question - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPVC4IyRTG8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPVC4IyRTG8
- trekkie1024 4y ago> Guess it'll be awhile before generalized solutions become even a remote possibility. And that might not be a bad thing, as it would give construction workers, etc. the time they need to adjust and adapt to the future of this kind of work.
- 51Cards 4y ago>I'd watched bits of it but this confirms that the process involves choreographing every little detail. Actually if you watch it all you'll see it's not fully scripted. Much of the routine is task based, letting the robot figure out how to do it. Wtch part where they basically say "Go pick up the bag to your left" and it locates, moves to it, and figures out visually how to pick it up. More and more of these routines are goal based, unlike the early Spot dances which were purely coded moves.
- WhiteBlueSkies 4y ago[flagged]
- clnq 4y agoYear of the Tesla self driving 2023.
- GuB-42 4y agoMy understanding is that Boston Dynamics videos are heavily staged, their robots are much less impressive in real life conditions. I saw that in an article many years ago, I don't know the situation today. But it doesn't mean these videos are fake, the robots are real, the movement is real, no hidden cables, no VFX, they are just following a predefined routine in a controlled environment, and I am not aware of Boston Dynamics claiming otherwise. I mean just look at the linked video, it is comically obvious that it is staged. And well staged I must say.
- 51Cards 4y agoWatchig this making of video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPVC4IyRTG8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPVC4IyRTG8 You may find it's less staged than expected. (though obviously a lot still is as they progress at goal solving). This is very unlike the purely scripted early Spot dances.
- King-Aaron 4y agoThey have a 'making of' video on their page, and while yes it's a predetermined route, the process of making it work is both fascinating and extremely impressive. The robot is doing some level of thinking on it's own and it processing it's environment by itself. It's very cool.
- musicale 4y agoStill waiting for household cleaning robots that can navigate complicated environments and put things away without damaging them.
- prawn 4y agoForget navigating and putting things away, I find it quite amazing that in 2023 we are still cleaning our own toilets and immediate surrounds.
- jaggederest 4y agoThey make and sell self-cleaning toilets at most big-box stores. They're just about 5x the price of a non-self-cleaning toilet, and I'm pretty certain they break down much, much more often, given that they have multiple valves and electronics in them.
- prawn 4y agoInteresting. Never seen one for sale and never seen one installed in any household. Still amazed that in 2023 they're not a common thing. I understand the challenges, but it's not a problem that's going away, that anyone enjoys dealing with, etc.
- preommr 4y agolink? The only "self-cleaning" toilets I see are over-engineered garbage that only help with cycling through toilet tank tablets.
- jaggederest 4y agohttps://www.lowes.com/pl/Self-cleaning--Toilets-Toilets-toilet-seats-Bathroom/4294737213?refinement=4294728589 https://www.lowes.com/pl/Self-cleaning--Toilets-Toilets-toil...
- prawn 4y ago
- aquajet 4y agoThis robot might have a better box jump than me. I want to see a comparison between it and some professional athletes, I think it can seriously compete with them now. I can't wait for the day we have robot (american) football and boxing
- philwelch 4y agoI don’t envy whoever ends up being the Garry Kasparov of boxing.
- RandallBrown 4y agoYou can probably jump on to boxes of several different heights placed in different places around a room. I don't think this robot can do that without a lot of trial and error by the programmers.
- londons_explore 4y agoMaking of video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPVC4IyRTG8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPVC4IyRTG8
- londons_explore 4y agoThe video makes very clear that this is a very 'staged' setup. The motions aren't fully choreographed - the robot does seem to have a little autonomy for things like balance - but the majority of the moves have been planned out by engineers. I bet if you tried to replay this with the toolbag a few lbs either heavier or lighter, it would fail.
- postalrat 4y agoStaged or choreographed?
- sschueller 4y agoAt least it can walk and balance at a reasonable pace. The Tesla robot can barely stand and shackes like a toy. Reminds me of those failed robocop successor robots in the movie.
- dalys 4y agoExpecting Tesla to build something as good as Atlas in 1 year is maybe demanding a bit too much? Boston Dynamics have 30 years of experience and 500 people employed currently. I'd guess if you give Tesla 30 years they could probably do something decent. Personally I think there's something like a 90% chance Tesla will give up on the bot after 'almost' getting it to work for the next 10 years. Would love to be proven wrong! Obviously there's a really good economic incentive to work on labor replacing robots of any kind, so I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of startups in this space in the next 5-10 years. I am actually a little bit surprised on why we are not seeing more kitchen robots in restaurants. Ten robots flipping burgers and assembling them and one 18 year old to hit the emergency break every now and then to remove the mustard stain on the depth camera of robot #4. (Actually robot restaurants probably wouldn't have humanoid bots, but look more like an industrial food assembly lines that served the food on plates instead of cartons that get deep frozen at the end.)
- sebo2000 4y ago[flagged]
- modeless 4y agoBoston Dynamics is amazingly impressive as always. But I can't help but feel that they are a lot like the people doing computer vision with hand-written features back in the day. It seems inevitable to me that The Bitter Lesson is coming for their control theory approach. (http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html) Possibly the reason it hasn't happened yet is the inaccessibility of robot hardware; nobody else can try different approaches to compete because nobody else has anything like Atlas. Maybe that moat can keep them ahead for a long time, but if the hardware ever becomes cheap enough for real applications, it will be cheap enough for plenty of competition. They will have to adopt more ML methods or be disrupted. Of course maybe they already are, it's not like I actually know how their stuff works in detail, but consensus seems to be that it's still mostly control theory in there.
- ricksunny 4y agoThat Bitter Lesson link is an interesting counterpoint to Stephen Wolfram's recent post on WolframAlpha|ChatGPT. Can the world be learned through statistical methods? Clearly it must, as humans did so as a collective. To calculate the distance from Chicago to Tokyo, in the Wolfram approach at one time someone had uploaded Earth_ellipsoid_model and the GPS coordinates of all the world's major cities into Wolfram Alpha. Is doing so falling afoul of the Bitter Lesson?
- DoctorOetker 4y agowhat makes you think they are explicitly choreographing each facet of movement? they show they run simulations first, so they first explore a large range of ways to achieve goals, that would be incredibly expensive to manually micromanage. obviously they "compile" the highlevel tasks into lower level "bare metal machine language" ones, to make a metaphor. the people who design a domain specific "compiler" need "intermediate languages" for interpretability and debugging. the fact they give us a peak at their "debugging" capabilities should not be misinterpreted as a bunch of engineers hardcoding in the "assembly language" of robot control. it seems bizarre to view the advanced state of their software tool suite (inspectability, visualizations, ...) as a sign of primitiveness. The subjective experience of becoming aware of the full frontal details of a car when popping open the hood doesn't suddenly demonstrate the "primitiveness" of the car, but rather the subject's prior lack of awareness of how things work...
- somenewaccount1 4y agopeople are saying this is "fake" because the overall motions were programmed ahead of time. However, picking stuff up perfectly, placing it, and jumping, just using sensors - which is what this is really illustrating - is not that fake to me. I could imagine this robot being used by airlines to move baggage. A confined set of pre-programmed movements with the only variable being the luggage on a cart, and a human supervisor. It reduced the back-breaking task of moving luggage to a just a normal "stand there and press buttons" type of job. Easier to higher for, maintain that crew member, and less injuries to baggage handlers.
- kaba0 4y agoIt’s “programmed” as in you tell a kid to go there and grab that thing and come back. Actually executing those motions have a ridiculous amount of complexity, hell, standing in one place and not falling over is far from trivial in case of such a robot.
- ericmcer 4y agoGiving it a narrow set of pre-programmed movements defeats the entire purpose of building a human shaped robot. The goal is for it to be general purpose. If they wanted to perform a single discrete task they could design a way more efficient machine for doing that task.
- Cyph0n 4y agoThe complexity involved - across hardware, sensors, and software - is mind boggling, even for this “dumb”, pre-programmed robot. So to me, it makes complete sense to build towards the ultimate goal in a gradual manner.
- colordrops 4y agoYou need to build basic skill primitives for the robot until it's no longer a mechanical problem, and just a software problem, which can be iterated on much more quickly and take advantage of mounds of ML/AI advances. Seems like they are getting close.
- 11thEarlOfMar 4y agoHow's Atlas on power? It's a 180 pound robot. How long between charges if it's doing actual construction work?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- iancmceachern 4y agoMy googling tells me 1 hour. People can go 4 or so before needing lunch. It seems like they're not far off.
- gnicholas 4y agoEnergized floors will take them to infinity (and beyond).
- jcims 4y agoEarly ones used a gas motor for power (it's hydraulically actuated). For a construction site you could use something like that to provide very low downtime operations.
- tmtvl 4y agoI feel the title is missing something, like "people", or "grenades", or "cream pie".
- mncharity 4y agoJackie Chan, the HK actor, filmmaker, martial artist, and stuntman, ended films with a blooper real. It showed stunts being practiced, and failing, with injuries. A reality check, a "what you've seen today was staged", a "don't think this was real, and then make poor life choices". I liked the integrity of that. Lots of people only see BD's demo videos, and not their making-of videos. Or don't have the expertise to interpret those. So each time BD does another demo video, I think of Chan's films, and wonder if BD might do better.
- thih9 4y agoAgreed. The article itself also mentions it: > As ever, it’s important to note that these videos are rigorously planned and structured, with falls and mistakes edited out.
- scotty79 4y agoWhy did you use his private, real name in context of talking about his art in which he used pseudonym? Did he recently stated he prefers to be called by his name rather than pseudonym?
- mncharity 4y agoThanks - I edited to drop the real name. "Foreign" names often get a "oh no, Americans won't be able to handle that" variant name for use in US releases. So when quickly googling for the comment, when I saw the wikipedia page had another name up front, I included it.
- scotty79 4y agoThanks for explanation. I wasn't critiquing you in any way. I was just curious about the reason.
- eozoon 4y agoFWIW, no one use his "real name" even here in HK. He has a chinese pseudonym that most people use, but even Jackie Chan is much more widely known/used than his actual legal name. That was kinda like calling 50 cents "Curtis James Jackson III".
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cypress66 4y agoI think for atlas (and similar robots) to be widely useful[1], you basically need AGI. You need to be able to explain it the task with words as you would a human, and be able to do it by itself. Otherwise if it requires a significant effort to program each task, it's just easier to have a human. If the task is very narrow, you might as well use traditional robotics. I think the current hardware is more than enough to replace a human for a huge number of tasks, if it had AGI capabilities. [1] Useful outside of niche scenarios, or scenarios where you MUST use a robot because or safety or similar.
- wnkrshm 4y agoI think people regularly overestimate the bandwith and precision of natural language. If you only have language, it's damn hard to communicate to someone how to do something.
- Jataman606 4y agoYou could create interface where human operator uses tablet like you would play video games. Creators would have to program some predefinied possible moves like "pick up object", "hit nail" etc. Then you are shown AR recreation of what robot sees with objects that you can interact with highlighted on screen. Then you just click, maybe select appropriate action from context menu and voila, the metal guy does heavy lifting for you. At least in my opinion it would be superior way to have precise control. Verbal communication is hard, even humans fail at it often.
- kaba0 4y agoI think their “dog-like” robot has such a program. You can make it walk by a joystick, but actual path-planning happens on the robot, so it won’t walk into a wall/avoid obstacles even if you just pressed forward, etc.
- narrator 4y agoIf people are having a hard time dealing with AI safety with ChatGPT, can you imagine the absolute horror of AI safety for a robot that responds to human commands and is in some ways more agile than a human? The crime accomplice possibilities are endless.
- nutate 4y ago"The dream of humanoids is that they should be able to do all the things that we do, right?" "we" is a stretch here, since the speaker has never worked at any of the activities their robot can play-act at doing.
- avidphantasm 4y agoQuick, someone call in a tactical neutron bomb on Boston Dynamics HQ.
- richardfeynman 4y agoWould be interesting to combine a Boston Dynamics-type robot with (1) a GPT-like language model, (2) deep learning algorithms that analyze human movement (a la Dall-E but for human motion rather than images), and (3) text-to-speech, so that you can say "dance like a child" and it can generate a child-like dance.
- emrah 4y agoMoney would have perhaps been spent better if Elon bought BD instead. These robots would make excellent workers to prep Mars for colonization and beyond.
- lancesells 4y agoThis isn't a comment on the "realness" of the video but there's an edit at :30 when it's picking up the bag right?
- NationOfJoe 4y agoi thought that as well on first watch, the bag seems to jump or suddenly change. I think, after watching it frame by frame, the bad is being quickly grabbed by the "hands" and over (what looks like, to my untrained eye) 2 frames the bag gets squashed a little. i think the hand motion is hidden by the arm, the bag is being held in a slightly weird way which makes it change shape unexpectedly and the hand closes very fast (hard?) making the shape change quickly.
- jcims 4y agoYeah the hand/pincers clamp down really quickly, deforming the top of the bag and pulling that yellow panel up, exposing a feature at the bottom of the bag that wasn't there before. The throw just looks like the bag has all of the weight in the bottom.
- squarefoot 4y agoWhat looks even stranger to me is the way the bag spins when it's tossed over the scaffolding, even more noticeable in the making of video. It may just be an irregular distribution of the weights inside, still it looks odd.
- grecy 4y agoQuite the discussion on reddit thinking the bag is fake. It also looks strange when it gets tossed. I also note the "foot tapping". It's not just tapping though, it's kind of appearing and disappearing. Certainly looks fishy to me.
- rr808 4y agoIs the two leg robot good because it will look like a human or there are real advantages? The 4 leg dog looks more useful, I wonder though if 3 or 6 legs might be better but for some reasons they're trying to copy nature.
- kerpotgh 4y ago[dead]
- d_tr 4y agoPossible "real" advantages I can think of: - Less legs take up less space - Less legs require less hardware - Bipedal robots require robust control, and achieving this would ultimately be beneficial across the board - Possibly easier to coexist with or replace humans in facilities that were designed for humans
- fnordpiglet 4y agoI for one welcome our grabbing and tossing bipedal robot overlords.
- Waterluvian 4y agoAre there any solid examples of production uses of these bots that are as impressive as the demos? I’ve been completely blown away by years of these amazing demos. But I don’t think I’m aware of one real world example.
- neumann 4y agoI'd seriously consider one that could navigate my house, tidy, do the laundry and put the laundry away, pack the dishwasher and unpack the dishwasher! Maybe mow the lawn?
- lallysingh 4y agoEvery time this robot does a little more, there's another minimum wage job it can replace. 24 hrs and a multi-year financing deal with service, no social security tax, immigration concerns, theft concerns, long spans of unavailability, or sexual harassment lawsuits -- it doesn't take that much to replace some jobs. People aren't just expensive, they're complicated. It also doesn't seem to need building or equipment changes, so the robot can show up as soon as it's convenient. Imagine McDonald's specializing these for line cook positions and providing financing to franchises. Or an autonomous truck with one of these in the back to load/unload.
- JCharante 4y agoShould we be digging holes with spoons? That way we would need 1000x the laborers. Increasing literacy rates killed off the jobs for people who would read and write letters or dictate books. Just because jobs get made redundant doesn't mean it's a bad thing.
- noitpmeder 4y agoAlmost every problem (including the ones you mentioned) are probably better suited by purpose-built automation, instead of a more "general-use" robot like this. Why would McDonalds pay some multiples of $100k PER robot, when they can engineer/design/mass-produce (at their scale) entire kitchens to do exacly what they need and nothing more. Similar with unloading delivery trucks. A purpose built unloader (I'm thinking of an automated forkift, ish) would almost definitely be a) cheaper (per unit of work) and b) be able to do the job a ton more efficiently than something trying to emulate "human" methodologies.
- post-it 4y agoA robot plumber could plumb your toilet. In fact, a robot plumber could install plumbing - and perform other tasks - during construction, under the supervision of a human. One human could supervise several robots, and the human would experience much less of a physical toll than current tradespeople.
- nirav72 4y agoThese types of bots will still only be ever used in niche areas (if at all) - simply because battery tech has largely stayed the same.
- tills13 4y agoniche areas is a funny way of saying "war"
- nirav72 4y agoIt makes no sense to use these bots for anything other than carrying supplies in limited scenarios. Like the pack mule they tested in Afghanistan. Why lose a bunch of these bipedal robots from small arms fire from a distance - when something like the MQ-9 Reaper armed with hellfires or cheap switchblade 300 style loitering missiles can do the job from high above. The latter has already been proven to be very effective in Ukraine.
- mkoryak 4y agoI really really wanted to see Atlas pick up that table saw and toss it up there. That would have been much more impressive. Oh well..
- raimafalor 4y agoIs it humans, grenades, pumpkins?
- ck2 4y agoGiven all the hoopla lately that self-driving cars aren't really and demos are staged, isn't it realistic to believe truly autonomous robots are a decade away?
- snshn 4y agoI wish it said “no problemo” at the end.
- WiSaGaN 4y agoSeeing the movement so fluid, I am wondering whether there is intentional "nudge" of the way it moves to have certain feels other than just optimal mechanically. Of course excluding those flips.
- Animats 4y agoThat's impressive. Although, like their previous dancing video, it looks choreographed. The problem with building humanoid robots is finding a sugar daddy to pay for them. Nobody makes money at this. A few companies have reached the point of having a saleable research product. There's Nao. Sony had something. You can buy those on eBay. Boston Dynamics has had a 40 year string of sugar daddies - DARPA, Google, Softbank, and now Hyundai. Their electric powered dog robot is more useful. Good mobility, not too heavy, useful for going into trouble spots and looking around. Especially since it can open doors, which small flying drones cannot do. Today you can put a good sensor suite, good batteries, and good actuators into a reasonably priced package, for used-car values of reasonably priced. There are hobbyist humanoids, but they usually suffer from being built with R/C servo actuators, which are not good devices when you need springy legs.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoThe military could use them as unarmed sentries that patrol and fill blindspots in coverage. Have a few that work shifts and tag each other out when they need a recharge. Drones are nice for this too but they're loud. Could also be unarmed partner for cops or security that can record video and grab.
- epistemer 4y ago[dead]
- kerpotgh 4y ago[dead]
- spaceman_2020 4y agoAI and robotics are progressing way too fast. I have 30-35 years of productive work life left. I worry if I’ll ever be able to work all those 35 years.
- danwee 4y agoI would be worried if I have to work 35 years as well. Seriously, I don't see myself working more than 15-20 years or so. Depressing.
- detrites 4y agoI don't get why folks find this depressing. If everything can be done by AI and robots - humans won't need to do "work" for all of our needs to be met. Ie, we can all go on perpetual holiday and/or work on things we truly love. That's the endgame here. It's not like the robots can eat any of the food they'd be growing and delivering, nor would they need to live in the housing they build, or use the sewage systems they'll be maintaining. Etc.
- danwee 4y agoWith depressing I meant: it's depressing that we usually have to work more than 15-20 years (even more, depending on each situation).
- detrites 4y agoThanks, I should've been clearer - I was agreeing with that.
- smallerfish 4y ago> humans won't need to do "work" for all of our needs to be met. Ie, we can all go on perpetual holiday and/or work on things we truly love. Unfortunately that's sci-fi utopianism - capitalism doesn't work like that. We've made enormous productivity gains over the past century, and yet we're still all working roughly the same hours (albeit with some additional worker protections) as workers back then, many of us at "bullshit jobs" that don't really need to exist. When our sectors are automated, guess what - the only people retiring early will be those who own IP or have stock in the corporations who own the automation. Those automated out of jobs will have to find something else to do.
- euroderf 4y agoBased on this video and Moore's Law, I can predict that robot movers (moving you from one dwelling to another) WILL be a thing. Billed only for (robot-count) x (time spent), so high-rises with elevators will be cheaper than those without. Load up the (probably-) robotic vehicle(s) and off goes your stuff. One stays behind and switches to housecleaning mode. Optionally they can leave your mother-in-law behind too :)
- kitd 4y agoI'm impressed by the way it lands its jumps. It's surprisingly "athletic".
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoNext: football!
- erikstarck 4y agoCool video for sure. Wasn’t there a post the other day about Tesla’s self driving video was staged since it was the best take on multiple attempts? Does anyone think this was not “staged” and carefully preprogrammed for a specific demo? Not that it’s not impressive but still. I can’t have “staged” robots in my warehouse.
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- akokanka 4y agoImpressive until it starts shooting at you and streaming in real life.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- danwee 4y agoFirst thought: if I get in the path of the robot I could get seriously damaged. Somehow I do know that when there is machinery around I need to keep distance and be careful. When it comes to robots, since they have human shape and human behaviour, my senses are not in an "alert" state. I guess we'll have to learn and teach our kids "Hey! Be careful! There is a robot around"