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How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#191

Post by grkvlt »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #86
unixhero wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She did an amazing job and is talented for sure. I still absolutely hate those robots. This won't end well.

> This won't end well. Care to expand on that? I'm very cynical about Boston Dynamics, given that - as far as I can tell / know - they've only done tech demos and again as far as I know don't have significant commercial success, or their robots doing things outside of (carefully orchestrated) tech demos. disclaimer: I never actually looked on their website for user cases or whatnot.

their website has an online shop [0] where you can purchase the things and have them shipped to you, to (ab) use as desired - so hardly 'only (carefully orchestrated) tech demos' any more.

0. https://shop.bostondynamics.com/spot

Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#192

Post by amelius »

systemvoltage wrote: post #34
Shared404 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or for the benefit of mankind. Unfortunately, I don't know that I can trust any of the organizations that would have the budget to control enough of these robots to make a difference in any direction. Which is sad to me, as I love this from a technological perspective and looking at a best case scenario.

Humanity's goal should be to build AGI and let robots take over - we're doing it, willingly or unwillingly. No need to have blobs of meat hanging around. Intelligence itself is human thing. Whether it needs to have a body / physical metabolic processes to run by injesting cheetos all day, is totally absurd. Evolutionary processes have given us so much unnecessary baggage. Pure abstract intelligence is pretty damn hum…

> Humanity's goal should be to build AGI and let robots take over - we're doing it, willingly or unwillingly.

Yes, but better not make them look human. Humans are bad at tolerating more/equally intelligent species, just look at homo sapiens versus neanderthals. Hell, even between races humans are barely tolerant.

Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#194

Post by mkl »

mrfusion wrote: post #133
unixhero wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She did an amazing job and is talented for sure. I still absolutely hate those robots. This won't end well.

We need the three laws of robotics now!

Totally impractical. You'd need human level general AI before they could be interpreted and applied, and as Asimov's stories show, they're plenty fallible even with that.

These robots know roughly where they are, what positions their limbs are in, how balanced they are, and what movement they should do next. That's about it. They cannot understand Asimov's three (*four) laws, or even a single sentence of English, and have no choice over their own actions as a whole.

Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#195

Post by AussieWog93 »

inglor_cz wrote: post #79
blackrock wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This robot is Version 1.0. And yes, it’s just a puppet. For now. A human controls its movements. What’s missing is a brain. And that will come in Version 4.0. Or whenever they perfect a decision and control system, for fully autonomous decision making. That’s when you should worry. Or rather. You’re probably safe, if you live in one of the western allied nations. That is your privilege. But a black, brown, red, or ye…

It is crazy to see from the outside how the color-of-skin obsession permeates every single conversation right now. I hope that the USA will be able to find some other topics and arguments one day. It is also false in this context. One of the most massive bombing campaigns in recent history was in European Serbia, and the hotspots of today (Syria, Iran) have a population that looks like Greeks. As for black: the only…

If you're going back to the 80's, don't forget South Africa's campaigns in Angola.

Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#197

Post by TeMPOraL »

cutitout wrote: post #183
TeMPOraL wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, it's a nice way to shift blame to scientists and engineers, away from people who actually use these tools for evil, or commission development of technologies to use in their evil business models.

All links in the chain are responsible for what they do, there is no single packet of "blame" that gets to reside with any single party, and denying one's responsibility will not make it go away.

Responsibility is not a chain, and it absolutely does fade away with enough degrees of separation - otherwise you could hold me responsible for looking at a driver the wrong way, which annoyed him past a threshold that caused him to scream at his wife later that day, and made his wife scream at their kid the next day, for whom it became a formative moment, pushing the kid into a life of crime, and 10 years later someone died because of it.

You definitely want to focus your attention on people with most agency over the problem, and those people usually aren't scientists or engineers. And you can't simultaneously praise decision makers for their wisdom and leadership, and absolve them from responsibility because they've only used an "evil" piece of tech they found laying somewhere.

Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#198

Post by Answerawake »

systemvoltage wrote: post #50
b112 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is bound to happen. There is no way it wouldn't I believe, of course in short term, we gotta worry about stuff like politics, solving hunger and world peace. There will never be world peace, unless humanity is no longer human, or alternately, under the boot of an all encompassing empire ruled by force. To believe otherwise, is to believe history teaches us nothing, nor our knowledge of human behaviour. To assume…

Spectrum of humanity spreads wide and there will never be absolute world peace - in the same way, there is no peace in the animal kingdom. As I write, thousands of animals are dying at this very moment, millions of insects are killed. Nature is fucking brutal, my friend. Unimaginable amount of pain was inflicted in the wilderness during this hour. We're lucky to be able to communicate to each other in civil manner wi…

>We're lucky to be able to communicate to each other in civil manner without ripping each other apart for food.

That will go away once Climate Change reduces the ability of the planet to produce abundant resources needed for the modern way of life. The remaining carrying capacity of the planet will force a move back to subsistence farming and with that comes the inevitable brutal environment.

Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#199

Post by thih9 »

jackhack wrote: post #140
thih9 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> would require so little from Boston Dynamics We don’t know that. Perhaps it was important for them to not have credits in the video; e.g. to keep attention on the robots. Your sister is credited elsewhere in BD’s article, see other comment [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25682864

One of the reasons for the formation of worker's unions (such as screen actor's guild) is to protect the rights of actors and film workers, at all levels. Receiving proper credit is a big part of compensation. There may be a fine line between a "film" and an "advertisement", and what's more this is surely not a SAG film, but it seems to me that credit for choreography on something like this - where the dance is the c…

> There may be a fine line between a "film" and an "advertisement"

To me a manufacturer doing a video that focuses on their products for their youtube channel is definitely an "advertisement".

> this is surely not a SAG film

SAG states that "Choreographers and assistant choreographers are covered for purposes of health and retirement contributions only." [1].

[1]: https://www.sagaftra.org/who’s-covered

Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#200

Post by aj7 »

rendall wrote: post #72
aj7 wrote: post #15

Awful interview. Almost nothing of interest revealed.

I thought it was a fine interview. It didn't dive deep into the technical aspects, but that wasn't its purpose. It gave me an overview and synopsis of some of the factors involved in producing something like that Also, the people involved including the author are participating on this page. With respect, this guideline might be relevant: Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good…

Warning: You are used to intelligent people not answering the questions asked.

(So am I. That’s why I got pissed.)

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