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Atlas robot does parkour

blog.bostondynamics.com

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Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#201

Post by derefr »

mlboss wrote: post #195
derefr wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, rather than any of these special-purpose autonomous robots, the most likely outcome: fully-articulated telepresence robots, allowing people using VR to do anything a human could physically do, remotely. That covers pretty much all of the above use-cases and more, without assuming advances in high-level strategic AI; just good low-level motor-model learning as already exists here, plus good Internet and input meth…

This would move all the manual jobs from developed countries to developing countries. Haircut in US costs $20 dollar you can get the same haircut in $1 in developing country.

I don't think the CapEx of a robot barber would work out, no matter how low the OpEx. (Which is why we don't see very many non-humanoid, pre-programmed robot barbers, either.) Just because the tech would be there, doesn't mean it'd be practical/affordable for mass deployment. It'd likely be the domain of rich people and/or tech companies—just as less-complex telepresence robots are today.

And by the time the CapEx would get low enough to use telepresence for such things, we'd probably have the general strategic AI to not need it.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#202

Post by RGamma »

DonnyV wrote: post #148
nostrademons wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boston Dynamics was initially DARPA funded and intended for military uses, so you're not wrong. The weird thing is that the more I study history, the more I think that the real dystopia started a century (and perhaps a couple millenia) before I was born, and we're just so adapted to it that we think it's normal. Take the "[Ro]bot" out of your headlines and those would be headlines from today, and if you ignore that t…

As soon as these robots are as maneuverable as people and even somewhat affordable for groups of hundreds to be made. We're DONE! The ultra rich and the Jeff Bezos of the world will buy them and return us to a world of Kings and Queens. Good luck trying to fight that.

You might be too optimistic with your neofeudal society because it insinuates the existence of peasants.

They might select the cream of the crop, wipe the rest off the planet to restore it to pristine condition and live in infinite wealth forever.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#203

Post by thendrill »

X6S1x6Okd1st wrote: post #168
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the reasonably reliable provision of calories via agriculture is what allows the size of stable societies to grow, and also what more closely tethers them to particular places. As I^HYuval would say, those are the things that help start the long journey to the mess we're today.

While I totally agree that it is necessary for the problems we have today, I disagree that it's obviously bad or necessarily creates many of these problems.

Depends what you use as "life metric"... Is working 30 years in a tooth paste factory more fulfilling than living on the savanna and hunting then dying at the age of 36 from a broken leg?

I guess we will never know. Yet we keep making things and automating.

Yes, we have solved hunger. Yes we have solved boredom. We only have to solve sexual needs. Then basically we have automated ourselves out of the "human condition".... But why. What is the point?

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#204

Post by rapind »

DonnyV wrote: post #148
nostrademons wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boston Dynamics was initially DARPA funded and intended for military uses, so you're not wrong. The weird thing is that the more I study history, the more I think that the real dystopia started a century (and perhaps a couple millenia) before I was born, and we're just so adapted to it that we think it's normal. Take the "[Ro]bot" out of your headlines and those would be headlines from today, and if you ignore that t…

As soon as these robots are as maneuverable as people and even somewhat affordable for groups of hundreds to be made. We're DONE! The ultra rich and the Jeff Bezos of the world will buy them and return us to a world of Kings and Queens. Good luck trying to fight that.

What’s the difference between a king and a Bezos now?

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#205

Post by Taniwha »

delgaudm wrote: post #8

I'm not a particularly pessimistic person in general, but I don't know ...this tech, while cool, feels like the precursor to a worse future in general. Maybe I've seen too much sci-fi, but these robots look like optimizing for future soldiers, law enforcement etc. Given all the other Self-Driving / Facial Recognition / Loss of Privacy / Deepfake / "AI is bad at recognizing $situation"-type posts, and as all these tec…

I'm sure there's similar video, in the Pentagon, showing them handling weapons - it's just not as good PR to release those videos

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#206

Post by robotresearcher »

derefr wrote: post #198
robotresearcher wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget 1) carrying enough energy 2) getting the price point down to what people are prepared to pay for telepresence. These are very tough indeed.

There are a lot of use-cases for which a tethered telepresence robot (with, say, a five-minute emergency battery for getting swapping from one wall-socket to another) would work just fine. You wouldn't see infantry drones, but it'd work for most anything that occurs solely inside a building.

Tethers are a nightmare. A nightmare.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#207

Post by derefr »

robotresearcher wrote: post #206
derefr wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of use-cases for which a tethered telepresence robot (with, say, a five-minute emergency battery for getting swapping from one wall-socket to another) would work just fine. You wouldn't see infantry drones, but it'd work for most anything that occurs solely inside a building.

Tethers are a nightmare. A nightmare.

For autonomous robots, sure. And for dumb robots. But are they a problem for people—e.g. rock climbers, divers, etc.? If not, then they also wouldn't be a problem for remote people, provided those remote people get enough sensory feedback to be aware of the relative position of the tether.

After all, the whole point of all this motor modelling is to enable the robot to do things humans do, like noticing when its foot lightly touches its own tether, and then using its hands to unhook the tether from its foot, temporarily pull it lightly aside, step around it, and then drop it. (Think: vacuuming a room with a tethered vacuum cleaner.) That's a very hard thing to teach a robot to do; but a human that realizes they're "plugged in" would do it almost intuitively.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#208

Post by robotresearcher »

derefr wrote: post #207
robotresearcher wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tethers are a nightmare. A nightmare.

For autonomous robots, sure. And for dumb robots. But are they a problem for people—e.g. rock climbers, divers, etc.? If not, then they also wouldn't be a problem for remote people, provided those remote people get enough sensory feedback to be aware of the relative position of the tether. After all, the whole point of all this motor modelling is to enable the robot to do things humans do, like noticing when its foot…

All that messing with the tether is pure overhead not spent working. It's also beyond the current state of the art.

A few meters of high-current cable weighs a LOT. Exerts large forces in weird directions and adds to your motor requirements.

On humans and tethers:

Do you like wifi? Why not stick to Ethernet?

SCUBA is diving without a tether. It’s popular.

Climbers use ropes so they don't die, not because ropes are fun. Bouldering is popular.

Singers and guitarists tend to move to wireless for performance as soon as they can afford to (purists excepted).

Because tethers suck. Suuuuuuck.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#209

Post by derefr »

robotresearcher wrote: post #208
derefr wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For autonomous robots, sure. And for dumb robots. But are they a problem for people—e.g. rock climbers, divers, etc.? If not, then they also wouldn't be a problem for remote people, provided those remote people get enough sensory feedback to be aware of the relative position of the tether. After all, the whole point of all this motor modelling is to enable the robot to do things humans do, like noticing when its foot…

All that messing with the tether is pure overhead not spent working. It's also beyond the current state of the art. A few meters of high-current cable weighs a LOT. Exerts large forces in weird directions and adds to your motor requirements. On humans and tethers: Do you like wifi? Why not stick to Ethernet? SCUBA is diving without a tether. It’s popular. Climbers use ropes so they don't die, not because ropes are fu…

> SCUBA is diving without a tether. It’s popular.

Look up saturation diving. The link from the diver to their dive bell — now that's a tether. One critical to human life, unable to be lost for even a moment, and yet which humans freely do freaking oxyacetylene welding around. And yet it still works out fine, in 99.999% of dives. Humans are good at managing tethers!

But to be clear, my point isn't that tethered robots would be preferable to or even as good as untethered robots. Just because humans are good at tethers doesn't mean they like them. So of course untethered telepresence robots would be better, if they were practical.

My point is that tethered human-equivalent telepresence robots — in combination with human operators who can map their intuitive management of their own body-plan into management of the robot and its tether — will be practical in an absolute sense, long before untethered human-equivalent telepresence robots become practical. We'll have tethered telepresence 'bots doing real, useful stuff out there in the world (decomissioning toxic/irradiated structures in non-polluting ways, say—or replacing those sat divers!), long before we manage to make batteries dense enough to power untethered telepresence 'bots for the same purposes.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#210

Post by [deleted] »

derefr wrote: post #209
robotresearcher wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All that messing with the tether is pure overhead not spent working. It's also beyond the current state of the art. A few meters of high-current cable weighs a LOT. Exerts large forces in weird directions and adds to your motor requirements. On humans and tethers: Do you like wifi? Why not stick to Ethernet? SCUBA is diving without a tether. It’s popular. Climbers use ropes so they don't die, not because ropes are fu…

> SCUBA is diving without a tether. It’s popular. Look up saturation diving. The link from the diver to their dive bell — now that's a tether. One critical to human life, unable to be lost for even a moment, and yet which humans freely do freaking oxyacetylene welding around. And yet it still works out fine, in 99.999% of dives. Humans are good at managing tethers! But to be clear, my point isn't that tethered robots…

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