Atlas robot does parkour • Hacker News Board

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#21

Post by tyingq » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 4:18 PM UTC

delgaudm wrote: post #8

I'm not a particularly pessimistic person in general, but I don't know ...this tech, while cool, feels like the precursor to a worse future in general. Maybe I've seen too much sci-fi, but these robots look like optimizing for future soldiers, law enforcement etc. Given all the other Self-Driving / Facial Recognition / Loss of Privacy / Deepfake / "AI is bad at recognizing $situation"-type posts, and as all these tec…

I would guess even the more mundane "bad robot" scenarios, like the various interactions with police bots in Elysium, might also play out.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#22

Post by ttmb » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 4:18 PM UTC

scythmic_waves wrote: post #16

dane-pgp wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As one of the comments on the video says, that feeling is an example of the "uncanny mountain" effect.

I'm not so sure. 1. [EDIT: IGNORE THIS POINT] They've done this before. [1] 2. To get more specific, look at the robot's legs around 0:09-0:16. They don't seem to be moving normally. I don't have professional video analysis chops, but I'd put some money on this being fake. Happy be to be proven wrong, though. EDIT: It appears I remembered this story incorrectly, and posted a link without reading it. I retract my firs…

> 1. They've done this before. [1]

Your link says nothing of the sort.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#23

Post by okokwhatever » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 4:18 PM UTC

delgaudm wrote: post #8

I'm not a particularly pessimistic person in general, but I don't know ...this tech, while cool, feels like the precursor to a worse future in general. Maybe I've seen too much sci-fi, but these robots look like optimizing for future soldiers, law enforcement etc. Given all the other Self-Driving / Facial Recognition / Loss of Privacy / Deepfake / "AI is bad at recognizing $situation"-type posts, and as all these tec…

Initial economic impact will be harder for those whose job is simply moving things/people around. And those people, obviously aren't aware of the problem they'll face in a few years (5-10?). Thats the real problem in the near horizon.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#24

Post by electricwallaby » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 4:19 PM UTC

retSava wrote: post #2

This is the video with the blog post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF4DML7FIWk To me, I like to see when they stutter or slightly-fail, since that to indicates the dynamics and real-time part of the thing, that it is not a 100% scripted thing (although the blog post mentions the engineers fine-tuning the celebratory arm-pump, to what extent is that scripted then?)

I noticed around the 50 second mark there is some fluid leaking out of the robots bum. Wonder what that could be?

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#25

Post by mc32 » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 4:19 PM UTC

delgaudm wrote: post #8

I'm not a particularly pessimistic person in general, but I don't know ...this tech, while cool, feels like the precursor to a worse future in general. Maybe I've seen too much sci-fi, but these robots look like optimizing for future soldiers, law enforcement etc. Given all the other Self-Driving / Facial Recognition / Loss of Privacy / Deepfake / "AI is bad at recognizing $situation"-type posts, and as all these tec…

If they were ever deployed as auxiliaries to law enforcement, my hope would be any weapon would have to have a human approve a request.

Robots should be able to swarm and restrain uncooperative suspects so there should be less need for lethality unless the perpetrator is an active threat against other people -a hostage situation, mass shooting, etc.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#26

Post by freediver » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 4:19 PM UTC

What makes this really interesting is that all this is achieved with very little or no "AI" (in the context of current machine learning approaches). Purely heuristics based approach to something as complex.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#27

Post by tyingq » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 4:19 PM UTC

prepend wrote: post #18

What can I do to defend myself against killer robots? Seriously, is there something simple that I can put in my glovebox of my car to use in case these robots start getting scary? Is there a simple household good that will work well against these, until they start explicitly shielding against stuff?

Spray can of sticky expanding foam for the various sensors?

Edit: Like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es2rVHLKS3g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVy5Vm43X_A

There's also bulk rodent glue, if you could figure out how to shoot it :) https://www.domyown.com/catchmaster-bulk-glue-can-p-15693.ht...

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#28

Post by narrator » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 4:19 PM UTC

delgaudm wrote: post #8

I'm not a particularly pessimistic person in general, but I don't know ...this tech, while cool, feels like the precursor to a worse future in general. Maybe I've seen too much sci-fi, but these robots look like optimizing for future soldiers, law enforcement etc. Given all the other Self-Driving / Facial Recognition / Loss of Privacy / Deepfake / "AI is bad at recognizing $situation"-type posts, and as all these tec…

The military will just use aerial drone slaughterbots. The Azerbaijanis did this in the recent Armenia/Azerbaijan war and it was a total blowout against 20th century tech.

Here's what I'm thinking the good future looks like: Let's say I have a big back yard and would like to have that be a productive farm. AI bot comes over, surveys the land, does soil tests, orders seeds, fertilizer and garden equipment off Amazon. Plants seeds, sets up permaculture, sets up irrigation, installs monitoring, goes next door, repeats for every house in the neighborhood. That's the kind of AI future I want to see. Software codifying knowledge of an experienced practitioner to manipulate the physical world in a way beneficial to humans.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#29

Post by trenning » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

Can we brainstorm how you would compromise one of these robots?

I don't think I've seen discussion about how you would stop one in an adverse situation.

Hogtie cowboy style? Taser? Paint splashed over sensors?

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#30

Post by Amin699 » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

The robot did pump its arm, but it also stumbled a bit on this simple move. It was just the slightest stutter step, something most people watching the video would never notice. But the Atlas team notices every detail and they want to get it right.

“We hadn’t run that behavior after the backflip before today, so that was really an experiment,” says Scott Kuindersma, the Atlas team lead at Boston Dynamics. “If you watch the video closely, it looks a little awkward. We’re going to swap in a behavior we’ve tested before so we have some confidence it will work.”