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Boston Dynamics Unveils New Robot for Warehouse Automation

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Re: Boston Dynamics Unveils New Robot for Warehouse Automation

#81

Post by amelius »

j-pb wrote: post #77
amelius wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, Tesla's Autopilot is using deep learning to detect roads, cars, objects and people.

I'm not saying that machine learning isn't capable of doing these things (most of the time). I'm saying there's no way in hell you'll get a non compliant blackbox system past European safety laws.

But robots need to do more than make accurate movements. They need to detect where they can safely move. For this last part, you can't realistically make provably correct control algorithms (unless you disallow interaction with humans). Hence, you might as well use deep learning for the entire system. Also, you can limit the damage the system can make in some other way (e.g. limit the acceleration of the robot or make it lightweight, etc.)

Re: Boston Dynamics Unveils New Robot for Warehouse Automation

#83

Post by amelius »

Aeronwen wrote: post #69
amelius wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can reverse the reasoning: if you can't safely manuoever a car through a street with people, then how do you expect to do the same with a legged robot?

It's slow enough to avoid by walking around it, and you can make it small and light enough to not harm someone it might bump into.

Yes, this applies both to control-theory and to deep learning. So I'd say choose the most flexible approach, which is deep learning.

Re: Boston Dynamics Unveils New Robot for Warehouse Automation

#84

Post by tachyonbeam »

spijdar wrote: post #25
chiefalchemist wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Save? Plenty. It means less parking spots, less HR, less toilets, and so on. They don't get ill, don't have good days and bad, they are fully trained the second they start, and so on. The most difficult part of business is the human element. For better or worse these mitigate that. The resources freed up from addressing the human element can focus on other opportunities.

I mean, won't robots need repairs/maintenance, "training" in the form of programming or tweaking parameters, and other things? These may have lesser costs than their human equivalents, but I don't think they're magically zero-maintenance.

It's also questionable how much cheaper robot training is. Specialized programmers to write special-purpose code just for your specific application don't exactly come cheap... Especially when you're not paying them directly, but rather trough some external robotics company you're consulting with. We could easily be talking $300/hour.

Re: Boston Dynamics Unveils New Robot for Warehouse Automation

#85

Post by philwelch »

lm28469 wrote: post #78
philwelch wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But now you’re moving the goalposts a little. If the problem is limited resources, the solar system has a ton of resources, and we can use those resources to improve life on Earth. Eventually we are going to learn how to live in space by managing small habitats there, but as those habitats gradually grow in size and in number we will learn from that and even become better at managing the very large and complex habita…

The goal post was moved when you shifted the discussion from real life to sci-fi...

It was sci fi from the beginning. You just prefer the dystopian, “Soylent Green” style.

Re: Boston Dynamics Unveils New Robot for Warehouse Automation

#86

Post by lm28469 »

philwelch wrote: post #85
lm28469 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal post was moved when you shifted the discussion from real life to sci-fi...

It was sci fi from the beginning. You just prefer the dystopian, “Soylent Green” style.

I don't prefer it, it's just the path we're following so far: https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/

Re: Boston Dynamics Unveils New Robot for Warehouse Automation

#87

Post by bstar77 »

jandrese wrote: post #58
bstar77 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Amazon cares much about the long team warehouse worker situation because they know it will be automated very soon. I'm curious if workers unionizing could negatively affect their automation aspirations.

They certainly are not acting like they don't care. It's full court press on anti-union propaganda from Amazon.

Well, they care about their image, I just don't think they care much about this social issue. According to them, people that have to pee in bottles would never work for Amazon.
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