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Boston Dynamics' new electric Atlas robot is swiveling nightmare fuel

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Re: Boston Dynamics' new electric Atlas robot is swiveling nightmare fuel

#21

Post by consumer451 »

inglor_cz wrote: post #16
consumer451 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would do us some good to worry as much about the workforce implications of these tools at least as much as we worry about things like AGI/Skynet. Four years ago UBI was being widely discussed. Now as we get closer to needing it, discussion has all but disappeared. IMO, the biggest challenge going forward is not technological, but instead it's convincing powerful, very dogmatic individuals, that what is ess…

I wonder if, instead of UBI, it would make more sense to give everyone a small set of robot servants. Say, 6 per person.

That's interesting, but might lead to even more population decline in the long term. But, that might not be that bad actually. I mean 1B on earth in 200 years might be perfectly fine.

Along similar lines, I wondered about generative AI and how legally, it's not able to create copyrightable work. I really like that, it makes humans necessary for the creation intellectual property. Maybe in the future, each child born gets some allocation of AI agents when they turn 18, and the fruits of the labor of those agents would be assigned to that adult?

Re: Boston Dynamics' new electric Atlas robot is swiveling nightmare fuel

#22

Post by RGamma »

inglor_cz wrote: post #15
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #13

It's interesting that a lot of people, including here on HN, find this new Atlas (does he/it have a name?) a bit unnerving or creepy. Historically what people have found creepy about robots is when they become too human-like, especially facially - the "uncanny valley" where the face is so close to human that the slight differences give the feeling that something is wrong - like a dead body brought to life, perhaps. W…

The faceless head is somewhat monstrous as well. I can almost see the ring going red just before the thing decides to slaughter the entire room.

Don't worry, you'll barely see the actual slaughterbots coming: https://youtube.com/watch?v=O-2tpwW0kmU&pp=ygUNc2xhdWdodGVyY...

Re: Boston Dynamics' new electric Atlas robot is swiveling nightmare fuel

#23

Post by JKCalhoun »

Company secrets, I suppose, but I wish there was more info on the engineering of it. Custom motors? What do they look like? (I see a lot of ventilation suggesting heat.) Are there anything like tendons (springs I suppose) so that the motors are being assisted to a degree in lifting the mass of itself?

Love to see a dissection so to speak.

Re: Boston Dynamics' new electric Atlas robot is swiveling nightmare fuel

#25

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

bouvin wrote: post #3

I quite like it. There was going to be an uncanny valley regardless, and BD clearly decided to lean into it.

There's a practical aspect to it, which I assume was intentional given the engineering challenge of being able to fully rotate torso like that, etc.

Most of these humanoid robots (e.g. TeslaBot in it's current state) walk slowly, which limits productivity. It wouldn't matter if the job was standing at an assembly station, but anything with legs is obviously targetting more general use cases such as "gofer" - fetching parts from bins, etc.

The benefit of electro-Atlas (they should have a naming competition!) is that it can essentially move or look in any direction, which means it has to walk/turn much less to get into a preferred orientation or move to a target location. It's a bit like the early "micromouse" competition entrants where they went from the initial car-like designs to omnidirectional ones (using omnidirectional wheels) so that they could change direction without needing to turn - just scoot off at 90 degrees to previous direction.

Re: Boston Dynamics' new electric Atlas robot is swiveling nightmare fuel

#26

Post by api »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #13

It's interesting that a lot of people, including here on HN, find this new Atlas (does he/it have a name?) a bit unnerving or creepy. Historically what people have found creepy about robots is when they become too human-like, especially facially - the "uncanny valley" where the face is so close to human that the slight differences give the feeling that something is wrong - like a dead body brought to life, perhaps. W…

It's exactly the uncanny valley effect of being human-like. Consider sci-fi utility robots like this, which most people don't find "creepy" (maybe intimidating, but that's different):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VkOlvXTvLI

Meanwhile humanoids are the stuff of actual horror movies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c7XccFwJrQ

I'd predict that a crab-like or dog-like robot would be better accepted for home robotics for this reason. We will not want them to look like us.

The same is true for aliens. A giant bug, octopus, or quadruped is far less scary than something vaguely humanoid. Sci-fi horror aliens like the xenomorph or the "greys" hit the uncanny valley in various ways.

Re: Boston Dynamics' new electric Atlas robot is swiveling nightmare fuel

#27

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #13

It's interesting that a lot of people, including here on HN, find this new Atlas (does he/it have a name?) a bit unnerving or creepy. Historically what people have found creepy about robots is when they become too human-like, especially facially - the "uncanny valley" where the face is so close to human that the slight differences give the feeling that something is wrong - like a dead body brought to life, perhaps. W…

It's creepy because it looks human enough but doesn't move like a human. We pick up on the head, torso, arms, and legs and subconsciously expect it to move as a human would but it does not- or at least in the teaser it didn't. Since it did something you didn't expect it could be dangerous so you should be careful.

Re: Boston Dynamics' new electric Atlas robot is swiveling nightmare fuel

#29

Post by hwbunny »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #13

It's interesting that a lot of people, including here on HN, find this new Atlas (does he/it have a name?) a bit unnerving or creepy. Historically what people have found creepy about robots is when they become too human-like, especially facially - the "uncanny valley" where the face is so close to human that the slight differences give the feeling that something is wrong - like a dead body brought to life, perhaps. W…

I found the dog prototypes disturbing and frightening because they moved in ways that no human has ever experienced in real life. They were similar to what the early Stable Diffusion models produced, the mangled limbs and fingers. Well, scary has its uses, like on the battlefield.

This robot looks good. It moves like a robot, it doesn't try to be human, and that's good.

Re: Boston Dynamics' new electric Atlas robot is swiveling nightmare fuel

#30

Post by inglor_cz »

consumer451 wrote: post #21
inglor_cz wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if, instead of UBI, it would make more sense to give everyone a small set of robot servants. Say, 6 per person.

That's interesting, but might lead to even more population decline in the long term. But, that might not be that bad actually. I mean 1B on earth in 200 years might be perfectly fine. Along similar lines, I wondered about generative AI and how legally, it's not able to create copyrightable work. I really like that, it makes humans necessary for the creation intellectual property. Maybe in the future, each child born…

The robot set could help people in some practical aspects that money can solve too, but in a more complicated way.

If you suffer from arthritis and need something from the topmost shelf, you can theoretically find paid help, but it takes some time to arrange and wait for, and most people respond by coping somehow (e.g. limiting their use of furniture to the subset easily reached).

A robot could do it for you on demand.

That said, maybe people would stop walking altogether, and simply let themselves being carried around their own house by robots. All such conveniences can turn to evil.

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