81–90 of 207 posts
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How do you trick them, by walking an "innocent" up to them, and blowing them up? Right now? Regardless of if it’s controlled by remote or by AI, the sensors are probably easier to fool than an in-situ human would be.
I'm not talking about fooling. Mass produced, these things would be 10k max. We're talking 10+, 15+ years out. What sort of fear do robot soldiers have? None. How does it make people "upset", if a robot soldier is blown up. Now think on the converse. Right now, suicide bombers take out soldiers, but almost always take out innocents around those soldiers. Often, children are killed. Now, imagine the locals knowing tha…
Sure, this would make it less likely to use suicide bombs against soldiers — perhaps even politicians will put skin suits on the robots and use them for public appearances a-la Westworld for similar reasons — but grenades and RPGs and anti-material rifles and IEDs would likely all still be used.
And £10k robots can also be used by terrorists, perhaps stolen from warehouses, perhaps hacked.
That said, what worries me about terrorism is not cargo-culting shapes that look dangerous (be that robots which look like the Terminator or 3D printed guns), it’s people with imagination who know there are at least two distinct ways to make a chemical weapon using only the stuff in a normal domestic kitchen and methods taught in GCSE chemistry.
Am I the only one that finds these BD robots kind of repulsive? They are so weird and alien and... unnatural.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 do…
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.
> But we live in a concrete society, [and] with concrete social and historical circumstances and political realities in this society, it is perfectly obvious that when something like a computer is invented, then it is going to be adopted will be for military purposes. It follows from the concrete realities in which we live, it does not follow from pure logic. But we're not living in an abstract society, we're living in the society in which we in fact live.
> If you look at the enormous fruits of human genius that mankind has developed in the last 50 years, atomic energy and rocketry and flying to the moon and coherent light, and it goes on and on and on -- and then it turns out that every one of these triumphs is used primarily in military terms. So it is not reasonable for a scientist or technologist to insist that he or she does not know -- or cannot know -- how it is going to be used.
-- Joseph Weizenbaum, http://tech.mit.edu/V105/N16/weisen.16n.html
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.
Care to expand on that? I'm very cynical about Boston Dynamics, given that - as far as I can tell / know - they've only done tech demos and again as far as I know don't have significant commercial success, or their robots doing things outside of (carefully orchestrated) tech demos.
disclaimer: I never actually looked on their website for user cases or whatnot.
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.
> There's nothing scary about these robots How would you feel if the dance contained some choreographed "mow the people down" moves?
It all depends on the context, I can't see John Cleese turning into a genocidal dictator anytime soon, while we all know what the people in the second video did only a few years after those images were filmed. For what it's worth I see the robot in this story closer to the second video than to Cleese's comedic genius.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
She did an amazing job and is talented for sure. I still absolutely hate those robots. This won't end well.
> This won't end well. Care to expand on that? I'm very cynical about Boston Dynamics, given that - as far as I can tell / know - they've only done tech demos and again as far as I know don't have significant commercial success, or their robots doing things outside of (carefully orchestrated) tech demos. disclaimer: I never actually looked on their website for user cases or whatnot.
Not to rain on anyone's parade BUT what about the battery life ?
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…