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Boston Dynamics robot Atlas goes hands on [video]

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Re: Boston Dynamics robot Atlas goes hands on [video]

#45
post #31

In which aspect is this better than a human?* It's slower, energy-wise more expensive (a human with just a sandwich can work for hours), less preciss and error-prone. As a Manager, I would prefer a person that I can blame (corporative and legally) if something goes wrong, that being responsible (legally, mainly!) if this robot makes a huge mistake. * From a business point of view. This is an incredible techinal achie…

From a business pov it's obviously better than a human because it does not need to feed its family.

Yet

Re: Boston Dynamics robot Atlas goes hands on [video]

#46
post #25
post #8

Compare this to the human controlled puppets Tesla demonstrated. Tesla made a big show of something Disney could do years ago. While Boston Dynamics is quietly building the real thing and showing us footage of it actually working.

You are comparing a live demo with many bots interacting with humans, versus a recording of a single bot in a factory by itself.

But, Space man bad!

Re: Boston Dynamics robot Atlas goes hands on [video]

#47

I think whenever I see humanoid robots like this: What is the battery life? I imagine this will be a critical limitation on these, until further notice.

The battery life of a human is 6-8 hours. Those pesky humans also want "rights". Takes a long time to make a new human too.

So that's the competition.

Re: Boston Dynamics robot Atlas goes hands on [video]

#48
post #47

I think whenever I see humanoid robots like this: What is the battery life? I imagine this will be a critical limitation on these, until further notice.

The battery life of a human is 6-8 hours. Those pesky humans also want "rights". Takes a long time to make a new human too. So that's the competition.

you can also swap out batteries for the robots

Re: Boston Dynamics robot Atlas goes hands on [video]

#49

See, this is a real video. Compare it with the obvious cgi fake that was put out a few months ago by Figure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq1QZB5baNw I still can't believe how noone has called them out on that one.

I often call out the cgi "enhancements" that I notice on Boston Dynamics videos. This one doesn't seem to have any that I can tell. On others, however, when I point them out, I get borderline religious vitriol pushback.

From what I've observed, (so preface the following with "It seems to me that:") BD obviously has a well-honed "playback" tool. They have the ability to command the robot to operate in a new environment, record its own movements to sub-millimeter accuracy, and record the environment (it has a live 3d point map after all.). Then, they load in the recorded environment+motion data, and play it back as a 3D scene. Naturally, this would be needed to analyze the performance and make software and hardware iterations. However, this data is likely also used to re-create a digital scene for the purposes of cgi enhancement of a performance that's intended to be recorded and released to Youtube. Similar to how Favreau uses a giant screen to approximate the lighting on the chroma-keyed subjects[1] as they perform, this data -- a giant shiny rectangle goes here, a window and a flashing blue light bulb there, these steps over here -- combined with accurate camera motion data, is then used to create a digital model with the exact shadows that one would need to create a more realistic "fake video" in the first place. The trick is that Boston Dynamics then takes the original take (or iterations of takes of it running the exact same sequence), and iterate a cgi-enhanced version of their "cool dance video" that the marketing team then signs off on. "Ohh yeah, that's what our vision is. We don't want them to see shaky appendages, or micro-stutters. Add in some extra scuff marks, too! Perfect. Upload it."

[1] https://illumin.usc.edu/the-volume-how-the-mandalorian-revol....

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