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Ask HN: Could a newborn baby walk and run by wearing an exoskeleton?

8 points by amichail 12y ago

If necessary, a real-time brain scanner could be used to allow movement based on neural activation patterns. Perhaps such an exoskeleton could even accelerate a baby's brain development?

djent 12y ago
Maybe easier than a baby-exoskeleton would be a zero gravity or extremely low gravity situation. I'd imagine balance is one of the only things that keeps babies from walking, and you can't fall over if there's little to no gravity pulling you down.
walterbell 12y ago
Maybe nature has already pre-scheduled brain development not related to walking & running? Calculators & exoskeletons are augmentative after basic skills exist, otherwise the brain would be completely dependent on the external crutch.
- amichail 12y ago
  The exoskeleton need not be worn 24/7.
  - crpatino 12y ago
    No, sorry. You are too ignorant on too many subjects to realize just how ignorant you are. And if you try to go ahead with this idea of your, you will cross the barrier into criminally-negligent-ignorance. Just don't! Children are not small adults, and babies are not small children either. It is not like your present self going to a tennis class on the weekends and leaving it aside the rest of the week. Every stimulus during the first few days/weeks of life outside the womb has a disproportionate effects on the neural development of the individual. Using a computer engineering analogy, babies are "pre-programmed" by millions of years of evolution to "bootstrap" their brains through "machine learning". Mess with the "trainning set" and you will cripple the result for a lifetime. This is the kind of experiment (on mammals) that can get PETA all over you. Just considering its hypothetical use on humans is pretty much the stuff 007!Mad-scientists are made off.
    - walterbell 12y ago
      This hypothetical question involves an exoskeleton and neurofeedback. Hopefully it remains hypothetical and does not become a mad-scientist methodology for using babies to bootstrap a neural network that teaches robots how to walk.
      - crpatino 12y ago
        That's not what I had in mind... though it's pretty scary and downright evil. I read the OP as trying to use robots to teach babies how to walk, not the other way around. I was thinking more in the lack of practical purpose of the endeavor itself[1]. Something that potentially causes a bunch of collateral damage for no clear purpose. Human babies have been learning to walk on their own for about a million years unaided, just like every walking animal before them. [1] Lampshaded here (kind of): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnMaroAlfvI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnMaroAlfvI
  - walterbell 12y ago
    Have exoskeleton market development teams tried such experiments on young animals? It would be interesting to see the developmental growth results of a statistically valid sample, assuming such experiments are ethically ok.
rthomas6 12y ago
I have a six week old son. He is actually quite strong already, but he doesn't have much control over his own body. He will scratch himself in the face to the point of bleeding if he's upset and he's not wearing mittens/his nails aren't trimmed. He can straighten his legs and body out and it takes a surprising amount of force to unstraighten them (if you need to, say, clothe him or change his diaper). Babies already have a device that allows movement based on neural activation patterns... it's called a body. They just have to learn how to use it.
- waps 12y ago
  The unstraightening thing is actually because of the construction of the bones. The bones bend a little, just a little, more than straight and there is a muscle that can pull on the other side. This locks legs in place when straightened, but still maintains a spring-like mechanism protecting the weak points in the bone structure (because it's not actually straight, it makes an angle). A baby is actually too weak to hold himself up. I'm not saying that that's the only problem, but his muscles are certainly not capable of holding his body off the ground the first 2-3 months. That's why it's important to put them on their belly (but not leave them like that for more than 30 minutes or so), and ideally try to help them crawl, roll and walk, even when they can't. They'll love standing up, and hanging from the side of the cot. Plus they'll love the attention. And don't worry about babies and young kids falling over. Their skeleton can actually absorb more force than yours can (because it isn't nearly as rigid as yours, which probably also means it's much harder to walk with). In addition to that, they weigh less, and F=ma, so they can easily survive drops that would kill or severely injure an adult.
  - rthomas6 12y ago
    We give him "tummy time", as they called it at the hospital classes. He can and does hold his head up quite frequently, but he is not yet able to push off the ground with his arms. This probably isn't of any interest, I am just doing the new parent thing where I tell everyone about my kid.
Piskvorrr 12y ago
TL;DR: No. A newborn baby is not a CPU+motherboard which just needs to grow the other peripherals and BAM it all just snaps into place, nor is it a tiny adult with fully functional tiny appendages. A newborn needs to develop all sorts of skills - starting with breathing patterns & sleep patterns, not to mention feeding. Yes, these things become automatic pretty quickly; however, the baby needs to "bootstrap" itself from the absolute basics provided by reflex, iteratively, to more and more complex tasks - it cannot start in the middle of the "technology tree," to use a metaphor from strategic games, as it would lack the underlying capabilities. Muscle coordination (in other words, developing the neural activation patterns whose existence you're presupposing), sensory input (movement w/o vision, very useful) and cross-referencing the inputs/outputs comes much, much later. Now, with a 6-month-old, that exoskeleton of yours might be actually workable (in theory) - but a newborn? No way at all; your view of human biology is rather cartoonish: we're not starting out with a complete brain which just needs some muscles, the brain develops alongside the rest of the organism.
- Stwerp 12y ago
  While I agree with you, its worth noting that newborns do exhibit a walking reflex (that usually disappears after a few weeks). I would not completely rule out the possibility of a newborn walking with an exoskeleton -- the problem seems to be that their muscles cannot support weight or balance. Cheesy example video, but the first after a quick search: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJIcKkxx7wg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJIcKkxx7wg Edit: and now I see that someone has already mentioned this in the other comments.
  - Perdition 12y ago
    >the problem seems to be that their muscles cannot support weight or balance. It does? Newborns can support their own weight when hanging. Most toddlers can support their own weight standing long before they develop the coordination required to walk. Babies lack fine motor control. Our ancestors, with less complex brains, would have been able to walk shortly after birth, hence the walking reflex. I suspect the issue is that the complexity of modern human brains delays the formation of the neural circuits required for walking because a whole bunch of complex features are developing at the same time.
seren 12y ago
I am not sure if you are aware, but if you hold a newborn baby under its arm, it will make a walking motion in the air with its legs. This is likely the remnant of a legacy behavior that was useful a few millions years ago. I don't know how the test is called but it is part of the standard test protocol at birth. I am not sure if this is part of Agpar score [0] or called something else. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apgar_score http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apgar_score
- keithflower 12y ago
  What you describe is a primitive reflex called the walk/step reflex: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_reflexes#Walking.2Fstepping_reflex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_reflexes#Walking.2Fst... It is not a component of the Apgar.
davelnewton 12y ago
Babies can't control their own bodies, how would it control an additional one?
pjungwir 12y ago
Here is an exoskeleton for babies, albeit not quite for newborns: http://www.newbornbabyzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/baby-walker.jpg http://www.newbornbabyzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/ba... But I believe these are discouraged nowadays for slowing development.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

8 points by amichail 12y ago

If necessary, a real-time brain scanner could be used to allow movement based on neural activation patterns. Perhaps such an exoskeleton could even accelerate a baby's brain development?

djent 12y ago

Maybe easier than a baby-exoskeleton would be a zero gravity or extremely low gravity situation. I'd imagine balance is one of the only things that keeps babies from walking, and you can't fall over if there's little to no gravity pulling you down.

walterbell 12y ago

Maybe nature has already pre-scheduled brain development not related to walking & running? Calculators & exoskeletons are augmentative after basic skills exist, otherwise the brain would be completely dependent on the external crutch.

amichail 12y ago
The exoskeleton need not be worn 24/7.
- crpatino 12y ago
  No, sorry. You are too ignorant on too many subjects to realize just how ignorant you are. And if you try to go ahead with this idea of your, you will cross the barrier into criminally-negligent-ignorance. Just don't! Children are not small adults, and babies are not small children either. It is not like your present self going to a tennis class on the weekends and leaving it aside the rest of the week. Every stimulus during the first few days/weeks of life outside the womb has a disproportionate effects on the neural development of the individual. Using a computer engineering analogy, babies are "pre-programmed" by millions of years of evolution to "bootstrap" their brains through "machine learning". Mess with the "trainning set" and you will cripple the result for a lifetime. This is the kind of experiment (on mammals) that can get PETA all over you. Just considering its hypothetical use on humans is pretty much the stuff 007!Mad-scientists are made off.
  - walterbell 12y ago
    This hypothetical question involves an exoskeleton and neurofeedback. Hopefully it remains hypothetical and does not become a mad-scientist methodology for using babies to bootstrap a neural network that teaches robots how to walk.
    - crpatino 12y ago
      That's not what I had in mind... though it's pretty scary and downright evil. I read the OP as trying to use robots to teach babies how to walk, not the other way around. I was thinking more in the lack of practical purpose of the endeavor itself[1]. Something that potentially causes a bunch of collateral damage for no clear purpose. Human babies have been learning to walk on their own for about a million years unaided, just like every walking animal before them. [1] Lampshaded here (kind of): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnMaroAlfvI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnMaroAlfvI
- walterbell 12y ago
  Have exoskeleton market development teams tried such experiments on young animals? It would be interesting to see the developmental growth results of a statistically valid sample, assuming such experiments are ethically ok.

rthomas6 12y ago

I have a six week old son. He is actually quite strong already, but he doesn't have much control over his own body. He will scratch himself in the face to the point of bleeding if he's upset and he's not wearing mittens/his nails aren't trimmed. He can straighten his legs and body out and it takes a surprising amount of force to unstraighten them (if you need to, say, clothe him or change his diaper). Babies already have a device that allows movement based on neural activation patterns... it's called a body. They just have to learn how to use it.

waps 12y ago
The unstraightening thing is actually because of the construction of the bones. The bones bend a little, just a little, more than straight and there is a muscle that can pull on the other side. This locks legs in place when straightened, but still maintains a spring-like mechanism protecting the weak points in the bone structure (because it's not actually straight, it makes an angle). A baby is actually too weak to hold himself up. I'm not saying that that's the only problem, but his muscles are certainly not capable of holding his body off the ground the first 2-3 months. That's why it's important to put them on their belly (but not leave them like that for more than 30 minutes or so), and ideally try to help them crawl, roll and walk, even when they can't. They'll love standing up, and hanging from the side of the cot. Plus they'll love the attention. And don't worry about babies and young kids falling over. Their skeleton can actually absorb more force than yours can (because it isn't nearly as rigid as yours, which probably also means it's much harder to walk with). In addition to that, they weigh less, and F=ma, so they can easily survive drops that would kill or severely injure an adult.
- rthomas6 12y ago
  We give him "tummy time", as they called it at the hospital classes. He can and does hold his head up quite frequently, but he is not yet able to push off the ground with his arms. This probably isn't of any interest, I am just doing the new parent thing where I tell everyone about my kid.

Piskvorrr 12y ago

TL;DR: No. A newborn baby is not a CPU+motherboard which just needs to grow the other peripherals and BAM it all just snaps into place, nor is it a tiny adult with fully functional tiny appendages. A newborn needs to develop all sorts of skills - starting with breathing patterns & sleep patterns, not to mention feeding. Yes, these things become automatic pretty quickly; however, the baby needs to "bootstrap" itself from the absolute basics provided by reflex, iteratively, to more and more complex tasks - it cannot start in the middle of the "technology tree," to use a metaphor from strategic games, as it would lack the underlying capabilities. Muscle coordination (in other words, developing the neural activation patterns whose existence you're presupposing), sensory input (movement w/o vision, very useful) and cross-referencing the inputs/outputs comes much, much later. Now, with a 6-month-old, that exoskeleton of yours might be actually workable (in theory) - but a newborn? No way at all; your view of human biology is rather cartoonish: we're not starting out with a complete brain which just needs some muscles, the brain develops alongside the rest of the organism.

Stwerp 12y ago
While I agree with you, its worth noting that newborns do exhibit a walking reflex (that usually disappears after a few weeks). I would not completely rule out the possibility of a newborn walking with an exoskeleton -- the problem seems to be that their muscles cannot support weight or balance. Cheesy example video, but the first after a quick search: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJIcKkxx7wg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJIcKkxx7wg Edit: and now I see that someone has already mentioned this in the other comments.
- Perdition 12y ago
  >the problem seems to be that their muscles cannot support weight or balance. It does? Newborns can support their own weight when hanging. Most toddlers can support their own weight standing long before they develop the coordination required to walk. Babies lack fine motor control. Our ancestors, with less complex brains, would have been able to walk shortly after birth, hence the walking reflex. I suspect the issue is that the complexity of modern human brains delays the formation of the neural circuits required for walking because a whole bunch of complex features are developing at the same time.

seren 12y ago

I am not sure if you are aware, but if you hold a newborn baby under its arm, it will make a walking motion in the air with its legs. This is likely the remnant of a legacy behavior that was useful a few millions years ago. I don't know how the test is called but it is part of the standard test protocol at birth. I am not sure if this is part of Agpar score [0] or called something else. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apgar_score http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apgar_score

keithflower 12y ago
What you describe is a primitive reflex called the walk/step reflex: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_reflexes#Walking.2Fstepping_reflex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_reflexes#Walking.2Fst... It is not a component of the Apgar.

davelnewton 12y ago

Babies can't control their own bodies, how would it control an additional one?

pjungwir 12y ago

Here is an exoskeleton for babies, albeit not quite for newborns: http://www.newbornbabyzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/baby-walker.jpg http://www.newbornbabyzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/ba... But I believe these are discouraged nowadays for slowing development.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]