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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]

#51
post #48
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

this robot has arms and legs and apparently some measure of autonomy now as well. It can change it's own batteries!

Which, humans do at least once a day, among tending to other biological needs as well. So the question is what's a useful run time if there's a bank of swappable batteries it can run back to refill from? Even if it had to go and swap batteries every two hours, for a factory robot that wouldn't be insurmountable.

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

#52
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.

> The battery life of a human is 6-8 hours. So that's the competition.

How many naps are you taking? Normal uptime is at least 16 hours. In special circumstances, much more is possible.

I'd be amazed if the robots are more than 2. Slightly surprised if they're over 1.

It's not exactly comparable.

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

#53
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The battery life of a human is 6-8 hours. So that's the competition. How many naps are you taking? Normal uptime is at least 16 hours. In special circumstances, much more is possible. I'd be amazed if the robots are more than 2. Slightly surprised if they're over 1. It's not exactly comparable.

Humans have an uptime of 16 hours, but generally speaking can only operate professionally for an 8 hour span. The other 8 hours are spent mostly doing personal maintenance and refueling their physical and mental capabilities.

Oh, and humans have traditionally banded together to punish those who ask for more than 8 hours a day or 5 days a week, and have even historically gotten very murdery over the subject. Buyer beware!

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

#54
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the robot can work 24/7 7 days a week, and if you consider paying the human employee at the end of the month and not just providing a sandwich per shift then the energy costs are not that high.

How much time the robot can work without recharging / maintenance? What's the throughput for the tasks? In the demo it only carried one object and it took it several seconds to move it. A person could do that faster, better, etc. It's real nice, but if you can convince a factory owner to replace people with this you are the best salesman in the world.

I'm not a salesman but I imagine if you're trying to sell them to a factory owner, you'd play up the problems with the worst humans. Humans come in hungover, still drunk, or not at all. And don't call in. They complain about every. little. thing. "Why do I have to do it this way?" "I don't want to do it like that".

They take long bathroom breaks (and think you don't notice, because they think you're stupid.) They steal. They fight with each other and need managing aka children's therapist for their bullshit. Which never stops. You can stop wasting your time dealing with the "human touch" and get back to what you really want - making more widgets so you can sell more widgets so you can make enough money for that kitchen remodel/winter/summer home/yacht/European vacation/jet.

Fire them and replace them with RobotWorker. It doesn't get drunk and cause fights or HR incidents because it can't keep it in it's pants. They'll work all through the night and through every holiday, without the same trouble of having a second and third shift. You don't need to follow OSHA with these things, though you still don't want to damage them - there's a support contract but that's unnecessary downtime for you, and you don't want that. Still, you can just replace a robot's arm. Just imagine the lawsuits when that happens to a human employee.

blahblahblah. I'm sure you can come up with more.

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

#55
post #37

Impressive. The machine learning application in these domains is the real game changer. PS: Isn't that the Lord of the Lithium, the Guardian of the Tunnels has the robot prototypes that not only serve drinks but do the small talk with full self driving AGI already?

AGI - A Guy in India

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

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yet

Selling one product and using the profits from that to create a second product is how businesses work. So if/when Tesla/anybody is selling their humanoid robot and those profits pay for going to feed the NVIDIA supercomputer that they're using to train models to run on robots, and to fund development of robot 2.0, that's exactly where we'll be.

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

#57
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.

The difference is Disney doesn't have any factories. I'd bet good money Tesla has Optimus doing real work in their factories, at scale, long before anyone else.

Boston Dynamics has been deploying Spot at scale for years now:

https://bostondynamics.com/industry/manufacturing

And it's one thing to have a cute demo showcased under ideal scenarios and another to have it deployed in mission critical environments around real people.

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

#58
post #24

Chinese Unitree's demos are better by now imo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dFTc4W8wm0

Unitree is catching up to Boston Dynamics in locomotion, but has not surpassed them yet I think. Unitree's real advantage is the much lower cost of their hardware and their ability to mass produce their robots. But IMO manipulation is harder than locomotion, both in hardware and software, and neither company is convincingly ahead there. I think the uncut laundry demo from Physical Intelligence a few days ago is bette…

I don't really want a robot wandering around doing laundry. I think what most people want is a box you dump clothes in and they come out folded, an extra machine next to the dryer. That would be a genuine time saver. I hate scaling Mount Foldmore.

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

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is Disney doesn't have any factories. I'd bet good money Tesla has Optimus doing real work in their factories, at scale, long before anyone else.

Boston Dynamics has been deploying Spot at scale for years now: https://bostondynamics.com/industry/manufacturing And it's one thing to have a cute demo showcased under ideal scenarios and another to have it deployed in mission critical environments around real people.

A mobile camera that can open doors is quite useful, but that's not on the same level as robot auto worker that could stamp out parts on a press.

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

#60

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 environmen…

> I get borderline religious vitriol pushback

I can see that. Because you're posting incoherent scenarios with no evidence.

Meanwhile we have Spot being deployed in Australian mines for surveillance where the environment is constantly changing. Not sure how they would accomplish this if everything they do is CGI.

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