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DARPA and Boston Dynamics unveil a new humanoid robot

extremetech.com

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Re: DARPA and Boston Dynamics unveil a new humanoid robot

#71

Post by stevenrace »

speeder wrote: post #56
lmg643 wrote: post #13

Terminator has always been one of my favorite movies, and reality has an uncanny way of getting us closer and closer to the fantasy. We justify this new technology in the same way - "it's for our protection"! Dictators run into trouble when the armies decide they won't attack a local population because, hey, it's their families and friends we're talking about. Robots eliminate that pesky detail. Imagine how a secessi…

One day my dad spotted me playing Mech Warrior, and asked: "Why bipedal war machines? That is stupid, just push them over and they now are useless." After that, I never figured why someone would build a bipedal war machine, even though I still have my nerdgasms watching all the mecha anime, movies and games... Anyone has a idea of why the hell someone would build a bipedal war machine?

Perhaps it's worth noting that Boston Dynamics' earlier 'BigDog' robots were not bipedal and apparently built like a robotic pack mule. Bipedal examples may have uses as human analogs for misdirection in war, field testing testing equipment such as hazmat suits/armor, or for 'live fire' training exercises.

Re: DARPA and Boston Dynamics unveil a new humanoid robot

#72

Post by cookingrobot »

Goronmon wrote: post #47
finnw wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A robot that drives a vehicle can be an integral part of that vehicle, likely far cheaper than a humanoid robot that fits in the seat (and also shares the human driver's disadvantage of poor peripheral vision.)

Then how about being able to be a passenger in a vehicle with any special modification?

You could just use a pickup truck.

Re: DARPA and Boston Dynamics unveil a new humanoid robot

#73

Post by jlgreco »

speeder wrote: post #56
lmg643 wrote: post #13

Terminator has always been one of my favorite movies, and reality has an uncanny way of getting us closer and closer to the fantasy. We justify this new technology in the same way - "it's for our protection"! Dictators run into trouble when the armies decide they won't attack a local population because, hey, it's their families and friends we're talking about. Robots eliminate that pesky detail. Imagine how a secessi…

One day my dad spotted me playing Mech Warrior, and asked: "Why bipedal war machines? That is stupid, just push them over and they now are useless." After that, I never figured why someone would build a bipedal war machine, even though I still have my nerdgasms watching all the mecha anime, movies and games... Anyone has a idea of why the hell someone would build a bipedal war machine?

Perhaps less important for war machines (particularly giant ones): the world that we have built for ourselves is built for bipeds. (ADA required renovations notwithstanding)

Re: DARPA and Boston Dynamics unveil a new humanoid robot

#74

Post by Renaud »

ianstallings wrote: post #28
hedonist wrote: post #11

God this is awful. Just a matter of time before these beasts are used to serve search warrants, deal with "difficult" protests, etc.

Or on the flip side, pulling someone from a burning building or performing CPR.

Judging by the budgets of the army and law enforcement against the various wars, abroad and local (drug enforcement for instance), I doubt that a lot of these robots will find their way in the underfunded fire stations or emergency services...

Furthermore, since defence agencies are financing the development, it's more likely they will program the robots to be sharp shooters before they learn the more complex tasks of pulling people safely out of rubble and giving them CPR.

Re: DARPA and Boston Dynamics unveil a new humanoid robot

#75

Post by adventured »

mikegioia wrote: post #20
lmg643 wrote: post #13

Terminator has always been one of my favorite movies, and reality has an uncanny way of getting us closer and closer to the fantasy. We justify this new technology in the same way - "it's for our protection"! Dictators run into trouble when the armies decide they won't attack a local population because, hey, it's their families and friends we're talking about. Robots eliminate that pesky detail. Imagine how a secessi…

I think this all hinges on when or if these things can get produced/maintained for less than or close to the cost of a human soldier. Imagine if these got down to $10,000 to produce. Then it would be cheaper to arm a 1-2MM unit militia of humanoid robots than it would actual human marines.

Human soldiers are exceptionally expensive. You can see that in both traditional foot-soldiers and in other areas like ships and planes, where the costs skyrocket because of needing to design around / for the safety of people first.

Robot soldiers will be far less expensive than human soldiers in every respect 50 years from now. A robot soldier can be powered down, and stop consuming resources when not needed (which is most of the time).

If you could produce a robot soldier that did what humans do, with a 5 year shelf life, and you could sell it for $400k to $500k, they'd sell like crazy. Just match the 5 year cost of a human soldier, then by removing the human soldier casualty angle it becomes well worth it to a government.

Re: DARPA and Boston Dynamics unveil a new humanoid robot

#76

Post by adventured »

speeder wrote: post #56
lmg643 wrote: post #13

Terminator has always been one of my favorite movies, and reality has an uncanny way of getting us closer and closer to the fantasy. We justify this new technology in the same way - "it's for our protection"! Dictators run into trouble when the armies decide they won't attack a local population because, hey, it's their families and friends we're talking about. Robots eliminate that pesky detail. Imagine how a secessi…

One day my dad spotted me playing Mech Warrior, and asked: "Why bipedal war machines? That is stupid, just push them over and they now are useless." After that, I never figured why someone would build a bipedal war machine, even though I still have my nerdgasms watching all the mecha anime, movies and games... Anyone has a idea of why the hell someone would build a bipedal war machine?

That assumes the robots won't be radically superior at balancing than humans are; they will be. It also assumes you can push one over to begin with; you won't easily be able to. They'll be able to withstand far more force against them than a human can before falling over, and they'll have a nearly perfectly calibrated response to achieve rapid re-balancing.

As to whether it's ideal (versus whether it'll work), that's a very good question. Perhaps if you can actually make it work very effectively, it's 1) maybe (?) cheaper than having three legs, 2) more agile than a tank tread style and 3) easily navigates in/around and uses human things.

Clearly in the future there will be a plethora of robotic war machine styles for different purposes, for the same reason we use different weapons for different purposes.

Re: DARPA and Boston Dynamics unveil a new humanoid robot

#77

Post by NegativeK »

incision wrote: post #64
speeder wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One day my dad spotted me playing Mech Warrior, and asked: "Why bipedal war machines? That is stupid, just push them over and they now are useless." After that, I never figured why someone would build a bipedal war machine, even though I still have my nerdgasms watching all the mecha anime, movies and games... Anyone has a idea of why the hell someone would build a bipedal war machine?

>Anyone has a idea of why the hell someone would build a bipedal war machine? Off the top of my head... 1.) I'd have think there's something to bipedal locomotion considering the evolutionary success it has had. 2.) We're bipedal. As long as pilots we'd recognize as human are involved, having an analog to the kind of movement they've necessarily trained a lifetime for seems sensible.

What are you using to define evolutionary success? Most pedal species aren't bipedal, and the more populous species don't even have legs.

Re: DARPA and Boston Dynamics unveil a new humanoid robot

#78

Post by NegativeK »

Shivetya wrote: post #9

What is the point of having it be bipedal? Would not the dog/four legged system work out better? You could still have it manipulate items with forelegs if you wanted but keep the inherit stability

One of the original stated goals of Petman was to test uniform designs.

Re: DARPA and Boston Dynamics unveil a new humanoid robot

#79

Post by rralian »

blhack wrote: post #37
Shivetya wrote: post #9

What is the point of having it be bipedal? Would not the dog/four legged system work out better? You could still have it manipulate items with forelegs if you wanted but keep the inherit stability

Because most of the parts of the world that are designed, are designed for bipedal things that occupy about 1.5 feet^2, and are about 6ft tall. Think about bigdog trying to walk through a house. It would have a lot of problems, because the house wasn't designed for something that looks like that.

Well, actually big dogs do quite well walking through a house. They're quite popular. They just need to make BigDog a little smaller, and I think the four-legs approach would work quite well.

Re: DARPA and Boston Dynamics unveil a new humanoid robot

#80

Post by methehack »

speeder wrote: post #56
lmg643 wrote: post #13

Terminator has always been one of my favorite movies, and reality has an uncanny way of getting us closer and closer to the fantasy. We justify this new technology in the same way - "it's for our protection"! Dictators run into trouble when the armies decide they won't attack a local population because, hey, it's their families and friends we're talking about. Robots eliminate that pesky detail. Imagine how a secessi…

One day my dad spotted me playing Mech Warrior, and asked: "Why bipedal war machines? That is stupid, just push them over and they now are useless." After that, I never figured why someone would build a bipedal war machine, even though I still have my nerdgasms watching all the mecha anime, movies and games... Anyone has a idea of why the hell someone would build a bipedal war machine?

Because it's creepiest?
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