Boston Dynamics CEO talks profitability and the company’s next robots • Hacker News Board

Re: Boston Dynamics CEO talks profitability and the company’s next robots

#81

Post by TheMblabla » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 11:07 PM UTC

bigdict wrote: post #75

bane wrote: post #60

IMHO, what BD really needs is a specific target use case to build towards. Right now Spot/Handle/Atlas are being positioned as robotics platforms. They're leaving it entirely up to others to figure out the use-cases based on the platform. However, without a really salient use-case to demonstrate why a $75k quadruped is better than a similarly priced remote-controlled and tracked robot, it's hard to envision how these…

I though military was the obvious target use case this whole time.

I think they were just the easiest route to getting lots of DARPA money, not necessarily the best business model though

Re: Boston Dynamics CEO talks profitability and the company’s next robots

#82

Post by kyuudou » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 5:16 AM UTC

bitbckt wrote: post #72

deegles wrote: post #68

Seriously, I wonder how the engineers there will feel when these are sold to the military or the police and weaponized. Maybe they say they won't now, but to say it will never happen is wishful thinking IMO.

This is already a thing: https://www.theverge.com/2015/12/29/10682746/boston-dynamics... No doubt, it will continue.

I'm guessing this [1] is derivative of BD's work, robot dogs policing social distancing in Singapore.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz7A8Umw5zY

Re: Boston Dynamics CEO talks profitability and the company’s next robots

#83

Post by kyuudou » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 5:22 AM UTC

danielheath wrote: post #20

eyeball wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cops will be using these to crush protestors in 10 years.

And the first “is a robot a human” test case will be when a protestor kills a police bot and they charge them with murdering an officer.

IIRC similar rules apply for some police K9 dog units, as in killing one is akin to killing a human one. I love dogs and all but... I think that's a negative precedent.