Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A chess robot in Moscow has broken the finger of its human opponent

newsbeezer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 509 posts

Re: A chess robot in Moscow has broken the finger of its human opponent

#221

Post by carbadtraingood »

userbinator wrote: post #93
carbadtraingood wrote: post #14

The answer from the federation is unconscionable. They blamed the boy and then said they could not be held responsible. Fuck off, a kid made a reasonable kid movement. If the robot wasn't ready to be around children, it shouldn't have been deployed around children. And there should have been a big red button that immediately everything, within reach of every player.

Are you really going to go for the "think of the children" argument...? Although I do agree with you about having an e-stop.

Yes, I'm going to make the outrageous claim here: children should not be expected to work next to industrial machinery with inadequate safeguards.

I know this is controversial to some, such as userbinator, who believe that industrial robotics without safeguards are just fine to mix with children.

Re: A chess robot in Moscow has broken the finger of its human opponent

#222

Post by blippage »

Nextgrid wrote: post #30
kstenerud wrote: post #22

One has to wonder why the hell they'd make a chess robot with a grip so strong that it takes the concerted effort of two adults to pry it loose. And blaming it on the kid was real classy.

The robot is a standard industrial robot arm that happens to be used for chess - it it was not made to be a chess robot. This is absolutely overkill for chess even just from a cost perspective so you wouldn't build something like this if you actually were building a chess robot. The amount of pressure this robot applies is totally adequate for its normal operating environment which is far away from humans. There migh…

"The amount of pressure this robot applies is totally adequate for its normal operating environment which is far away from humans."

it's interesting to watch some of the Boston Robotics videos. They're mostly supposed to be entertaining, but even then, it's clear that they've thought about safety.

In one, they're dancing, but the dance area is surrounded by observation walls. In another one, a guy tests a robot's sense of balance and ability to react to unexpected events. He uses a broom stick to push the robot to try to unbalance it, and a hockey stick to knock a box away from the robot as it was about to pick it up.

In other words, you just don't go right up to the robot and do what you want, you maintain distance in case the robot does something unexpected. I presume they have some kind of kill switch, too, in case the whole experiment goes tits up.

That whole robot chess stunt seems pretty dumbass in retrospect, but instead of learning the lesson that industrial robots are potentially dangerous they go and blame the boy. So, lesson very much not learned in this instance.

Re: A chess robot in Moscow has broken the finger of its human opponent

#223

Post by carbadtraingood »

charcircuit wrote: post #156
stevage wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure there is, like if you move a piece, hit the clock, then realise your piece wasn't quite centered on the square. Maybe not technically correct, but reasonable.

A robot isn't just going to grab your piece since the rules of the game state it has to move its own piece.

Oh, that settles it. Robot cannot do things that are outside of the rules of chess.

Kid should have known better than to open with the classic, "break my finger" opening from the regulation standard rules.

Industrial robotics are incredibly dangerous. They operate without concern for anything in their path. Robotic arms like this can be lethal, and the idea that the robot wouldn't ever do anything unusual is, quite frankly, laughable naive.

Re: A chess robot in Moscow has broken the finger of its human opponent

#224

Post by josephcsible »

ALittleLight wrote: post #217
godelski wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AGI alignment is a vastly bigger problem But also far less likely to happen anytime soon. A bigger danger is when someone thinks a machine is sentient or "semi-conscious" (whatever that means) and naively uses it to do tasks it shouldn't.

I don't think you nor anyone else knows when AGI is likely to happen. I also don't think that incorrectly believing a machine is sentient when it is not is a "bigger danger." Again, an improperly aligned AGI could kill the entire human race. I'm not sure what harm incorrectly believing a machine is sentient might do, but I don't think it would be as bad as human extinction or enslavement which are both real possibili…

You seem to be comparing only the worst-case impact and not the probability. To see why that's fallacious, consider that an asteroid could also kill the entire human race, but nobody would agree that asteroids are more dangerous than drunk driving.

Re: A chess robot in Moscow has broken the finger of its human opponent

#225

Post by smsm42 »

carbadtraingood wrote: post #218
Aeolun wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is Moscow though. I think it’s fairly likely the culture in Moscow is fairly homogenous.

Is it? Is the culture of Paris fairly homogenous? New York? London? Berlin? I would imagine the place has some shared cultural understandings, generally, but that a big city is going to be much more heterogenous. But maybe I'm thinking too micro scale.

You need to realize though the West has embraced multiculturalism, largely. Russia has not. It does not mean there are no diverse cultures in Russia - or even Moscow, but it does mean there is one dominant culture, and closer you get to the places where power is accessible, the more dominant and more exclusive it becomes. There are various cultures found in Moscow (and any big city in Russia), but there is also the Culture. In the West, a lot of effort is taken for the old Western culture not to be the culture of Paris, New York, London, Berlin, etc. Some endorse these efforts, some decry them, but it is obvious they happen. In Russia, nothing of the sort happens, on the contrary, if you want to be in power, you will abandon whatever culture you came from and embrace the culture of power. If you do not, you'll never get to wield any power.

Re: A chess robot in Moscow has broken the finger of its human opponent

#226

Post by smsm42 »

6figurelenins wrote: post #197
birdyrooster wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, there is no way they are that cartoonish.

Allow me to suggest, in all seriousness, American government is not so different.

All governments do it to a certain degree. But usually when American government gets caught on it, it is considered an embarrassment, and people involved may have to apologize or, in very rare cases, even suffer some consequences. In Russia, it's how it is expected to work and there's no shame in it. It is very sad to observe that American government (and American politicians, and American press, and many other institutions) are sliding to that direction lately. Not there yet, but the vector definitely points to that direction.

Re: A chess robot in Moscow has broken the finger of its human opponent

#228

Post by Intermernet »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #157
cowtools wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a demo/photoshoot of the company's own equipment. You would think they know what they're doing: they make the damn things! On the other hand, we have some russians that have already proven themselves incompetent. Doesn't have anything to do with intellegence. It has to do with engineering professionalism.

Quoted post unavailable.

I think you're reading too much into this. The people who did this particular stupid thing were Russian. That isn't a claim that all Russian people are stupid. People of all nationalities do stupid things all the time.

Re: A chess robot in Moscow has broken the finger of its human opponent

#229

Post by jrumbut »

NamTaf wrote: post #178
jrumbut wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's appalling the robot was designed to ever use that much force in the grip. Even if the chess pieces were made of lead I can't see it being needed. In general, more attention to failing safe. But the kid is some kind of local chess champion, I can't fully fault the decision to have him play with the experimental chess robot. Is it more dangerous than a lawn mower or a blender or any other machine that 9 year olds…

Correct. The fact they made a robot that could crush a human hand means they paid no attention to this hazard. Competent execution of Safety in Design concepts would demand limiting the grip force to only what's necessary to reliably move the pieces, which almost certianly wouldn't break bone. If that isn't possible, then it would imply the requirement to find some other way to resolve this hazard in the heirarchy of…

You would think that much force would lead to broken actuators and chess pieces often enough during development that someone would land on the idea of setting an upper limit on all forces just to save money.

Re: A chess robot in Moscow has broken the finger of its human opponent

#230

Post by divan »

drew-y wrote: post #149

This is appalling. There is no world in which an industrial robot like that should be operating next to a child. Their force sensors are not nearly sensitive enough to stop before causing serious injury. Going fast enough, they can absolutely kill you. This just screams negligence to me. Cannot believe they tried to blame it on the child. There are robots, called Cobots, designed specifically for this type of environ…

> This just screams negligence to me.

This is very much a default mode for ex-USSR countries, especially russia. While russian bureocracy is extremely procedural, it has nothing to do with efficiency or safety (most of the regulations and laws in post-soviet countries are written not to increase safety or utility for population, but for controlling power and money flows and benefeting someone on the top).

Post reply on HN