Live data from Hacker News

Atlas robot does parkour

blog.bostondynamics.com

191–200 of 242 posts

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#191
Would it be incorrect to say that the primary problems Boston Dynamics works on, which is planning and controls, is already mostly a solved problem?

My understanding is that the majority of research was completed within the past few decades, in comparison to the relative nascency of modern deep learning techniques.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#192

The "cha-ching" is a placeholder for "strafe the rioters". Too cynical?

Much easier (and already being done) with drones.

What would these legged, ground-traversing robots be better at than the flying variety?

Sweeping tunnels?

Construction?

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#193
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Have you seen the behind the scenes video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EezdinoG4mk

That provides some great context, but I couldn't help finding it a little unsettling at 03:09 when one of the robots is suspended off the ground and "bleeding" a pink fluid onto the mat beneath it.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#194

Are these incredibly expensive or have a regulatory hurdle or something? I feel like we've been seeing increasingly sophisticated demos like this for over a decade now and yet nothing has really made it to market that I can tell. Maybe there just literally aren't many good use cases for the types of robots made by Boston dynamics?

No. But it's just a demo. In perfect conditions if you run it 100 times this is the result. In the real world they have no application as they fail pretty much always in real conditions. But this is research, pushing things in controlled conditions help you learn what you can do in less controlled conditions. Though sometimes it's just a deadend. The exact same thing is true of YouTuber stunt videos. Any very impress…

Also battery tech needs to improve for practical usage

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#195
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could see this. Especially robot armies marching back into the middle east. I can also see robot caregivers for the elderly. Or in cities built for pedestrians a robot walking next to you carrying your shopping bags or escorting your kids to school with a live video feed back to the parents. Fire trucks pulling up and 50 robots jumping out and running into a burning building to carry people out. Could go either way…

Or, rather than any of these special-purpose autonomous robots, the most likely outcome: fully-articulated telepresence robots, allowing people using VR to do anything a human could physically do, remotely. That covers pretty much all of the above use-cases and more, without assuming advances in high-level strategic AI; just good low-level motor-model learning as already exists here, plus good Internet and input meth…

This would move all the manual jobs from developed countries to developing countries. Haircut in US costs $20 dollar you can get the same haircut in $1 in developing country.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#196

That’s cool and all, but how long before they can manage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx-vUsShk9U (Robot fight in “Outside the Wire”).

Robotic platforms would not miss as much as in the movie, but a 5 second gunfight scene wouldnt be fun to watch.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#197
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?

If these become a serious concern to where simply throwing crap on the sensors isn't enough, small scale EMPs aren't that complicated. Using a fast explosive to blast a magnet through a few coils of wire will make a fairly powerful locallized pulse, although it is likely super illegal.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#198
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, rather than any of these special-purpose autonomous robots, the most likely outcome: fully-articulated telepresence robots, allowing people using VR to do anything a human could physically do, remotely. That covers pretty much all of the above use-cases and more, without assuming advances in high-level strategic AI; just good low-level motor-model learning as already exists here, plus good Internet and input meth…

Don't forget 1) carrying enough energy 2) getting the price point down to what people are prepared to pay for telepresence. These are very tough indeed.

There are a lot of use-cases for which a tethered telepresence robot (with, say, a five-minute emergency battery for getting swapping from one wall-socket to another) would work just fine. You wouldn't see infantry drones, but it'd work for most anything that occurs solely inside a building.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#199

I wonder if it would be possible to setup a multi-agent reinforcement learning scenario where a few of those play tag over a complex terrain.

They would probably need 10x the technical woman power to keep them operational for longer than 10 minute stretches. The second article about the challenges articulates pretty well they are in the crawling stage of locomotion, constantly discovering and improving on hardware bottlenecks and weak points.
Post reply on HN