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How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

spectrum.ieee.org

21–30 of 207 posts

Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#21
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing scary about these robots, any more than my Roomba is scary. They are tools, and like all tools, they can be used for nefarious purposes or for the benefit of mankind.

A roomba doesn't have the potential to kill you.

Mount a knife on it.

Though to day, the most dangerous murderous machines we have created have been cars.

Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#23
Fascinating!

On a separate note, I was reading up on Boston Dynamics just the other day and was surprised to see that they are now owned by Hyundai (Google X sold BD to SoftBank who sold them to Hyundai). I guess was surprised to see non US-based ownership because I had always assumed the US government had some interest in the core technology.

Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#25
post #15

Awful interview. Almost nothing of interest revealed.

I concur, I was hoping to see more detail on how they actually train Atlas to do things. Do they use a software simulator? Can it mimic a motion capture of a human? Is it rigged like a video game model?

Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#26
post #22
post #15

Awful interview. Almost nothing of interest revealed.

Yea I still don't know what the input level is for the robots, did they use some sort of dance notation[1]? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labanotation

Probably limb positions at discreet instances in time, and bots know how to move from one position to another.

Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#27
post #2

My sister choreographed this dance, and I’m a little unhappy that she isn’t mentioned here by name. She’s brilliant, and I want her to get credit. Her name is Monica Thomas. Her dance company is called Mad King Thomas. Here is her brand new Twitter account: https://mobile.twitter.com/onetruebonc Her sense of humor is captured by her choice of the song “Do you love me”, which is a winking but still charming reference…

She did an amazing job and is talented for sure.

I still absolutely hate those robots. This won't end well.

Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#28
post #7
post #2

My sister choreographed this dance, and I’m a little unhappy that she isn’t mentioned here by name. She’s brilliant, and I want her to get credit. Her name is Monica Thomas. Her dance company is called Mad King Thomas. Here is her brand new Twitter account: https://mobile.twitter.com/onetruebonc Her sense of humor is captured by her choice of the song “Do you love me”, which is a winking but still charming reference…

There's nothing scary about these robots, any more than my Roomba is scary. They are tools, and like all tools, they can be used for nefarious purposes or for the benefit of mankind.

If your Roomba was programmed to hurt me I’d surround myself with power cords.

This looks like us so it’s easier to see how we’re threatened by it. It’s more visceral. My cats don’t care about my vacuum but if it walked and jumped their neutrons might fire differently.

Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What would you use use it for if you had one?

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.

Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#30
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing scary about these robots, any more than my Roomba is scary. They are tools, and like all tools, they can be used for nefarious purposes or for the benefit of mankind.

> 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.

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.
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