Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Atlas robot does parkour

blog.bostondynamics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 242 posts

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#221

Post by meowster »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #69
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…

Whenever they do these demos they never show them firing weapons. I guess they just haven't figured that out yet.

Or they have, but just don't want to release the video and scare people.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#222

Post by noir_lord »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #214
noir_lord wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Culture is the future I want, the polity is the one I could accept. Asher world builds literally better than anyone I know - his aliens feel truly alien . The Hooder is straight out of nightmare fuel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture for anyone who hasn't heard of it. Sounds like an unlikely, but possible future.

Aye which is why of the two I think the Polity would be the more likely outcome given human nature.

The Polity universe is technologically comparable to the Culture but in almost every other way darker, grittier and dirtier.

There are quite a few parallels between them though - enough that if you love one you'll at least like the other.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#223

Post by inglor_cz »

rapind wrote: post #204
DonnyV wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

People quit employment at Bezos' companies all the time. Just today an important figure at Blue Origin decided to leave and switch to another space startup.

That would be much harder in feudalism. Not outright impossible - if they were bored with you, they wouldn't object - but if the king wanted to keep you, it would be risky to defy him.

One of the reasons why Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy was such a hotbed of intellectual activity was that local nobles had only very limited reach. If you got into conflict with one prince, you could move 20 miles away and be under protection of somebody else. And that could be done almost overnight.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#224

Post by bamboozled »

411111111111111 wrote: post #173
jjk166 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes we forget that the last 3-5 generations were the only humans in history for whom seeing a sibling die in childhood was not the norm. Instead of the industrial revolution dehumanizing us, for the first time ever we are raised from birth confident that we will live long and prosperous lives, that we need not kill nor fear being killed to live in this prosperity. Human life has become much more precious and ch…

whats also easily forgotten is just how many people are alive right now. the current estimate is that there have roughly been 105 billion birth since 50 000BC, with our current world population at almost 8 billion... about 8% of all humans that have ever lived are currently still alive.

What you're also forgetting is those huge numbers are often from countries where people probably do still watch their siblings die.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#225

Post by euroderf »

narrator wrote: post #28
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…

The military will just use aerial drone slaughterbots. The Azerbaijanis did this in the recent Armenia/Azerbaijan war and it was a total blowout against 20th century tech. Here's what I'm thinking the good future looks like: Let's say I have a big back yard and would like to have that be a productive farm. AI bot comes over, surveys the land, does soil tests, orders seeds, fertilizer and garden equipment off Amazon.…

Will your Garden-AI explain, document, and footnote everything ? Or will it be a black box that leaves you none the wiser ?

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#226

Post by rm445 »

lawrenceyan wrote: post #191

Would it be incorrect to say that the primary problems Boston Dynamics works on, which is planning and controls, is already mostly a solved problem? My understanding is that the majority of research was completed within the past few decades, in comparison to the relative nascency of modern deep learning techniques.

The foundations are understood, in a 'chemistry is just the Schrödinger equation' kind of way. Any amount of research and engineering is still needed to make machines which can move themselves effectively, be energy-efficient, and interact with the messy and unstructured wider world.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#227

Post by CryptoPunk »

beeboop wrote: post #219
SamPatt wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've seen multiple attempts at non-capitalist systems, and they have an abysmal track record. Living standards are way higher today than a century ago. You are comparing against a non-existent Utopia.

Capitalism doesn't like non-capitalist systems. Any examples we possibly have of non-capitalist structures always have capitalist pressures exerted against them. To pretend that established powers have not consistently and aggressively tried to stamp out threats to capitalism is ridiculous. >Living standards are way higher today than a century ago. How much higher would they be without capitalism? Probably a lot. >Yo…

>>To pretend that established powers have not consistently and aggressively tried to stamp out threats to capitalism is ridiculous.

I recommend you do more research on systems that have tried to eliminate money, private property and trade. While there has been some US intervention to disrupt them, as in the case of US backed coup attempts, funding of political and armed opposition, and sanctions, the totalitarianism and dysfunction they create is so extreme that there is doubt that anti-market systems are unnatural and unworkable.

>>We have a lot more examples of failed capitalist countries than failed communist ones.

Look at China before and after its 1978 market reforms, or East versus West Germany, or South versus North Korea.

We have socialists in the West, like Jacobin magazine founder Bhaskar Sunkara defending the Berlin wall, that was used to prevent people in East Germany from fleeing, and even the brutal murder of Czar Nicholas II's little children, to avoid admitting that socialism is harmful. Beware of who you believe.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#228

Post by CryptoPunk »

handrous wrote: post #105
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 think the developed world's headed nigh-inevitably toward something more closely resembling the Chinese model of government—maybe not with autocratic leadership, but with similar levels of centralized surveillance and such, extensive Internet filtering and blocking, and yeah, probably a lot more robots in law enforcement (military? Definitely yes in China if it makes cost/benefit sense, and maybe in the West whethe…

States that don't implement those forms of totalitarian surveillance/control will not suffer. They will be far more stable, with a less concentrated distribution of power and thus less economic resources wasted through rent-seeking.

Centralization of power invites corruption and leads to social fragility.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#229

Post by thefounder »

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…

It's just policy and tools. Regardless of the tools used certain policies are enforced.

The robots/technologies are just tools. You have opreasive govenments spanning generations without robots and you have democracies as well.

I certainly want more robots around to do the boring and risky jobs.

Even if wars are conducted using robots(which is pretty innevitable) I see it as a good thing. The best tech wins instead of the most barbarian or the better propaganda machine.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#230

Post by Valgrim »

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.

Imagine being able to remote control a semi-autonomous humanoid robot on the moon, or on mars, on in the asteroid belt, or in LEO, with the same dexterity and adaptability as humans, or even insects, but without needing air or water or sleep. Artificial General Intelligence would not even be required for those. They could build giant cities hundreds of kilometers deep, industrial centers, operate mines and farms. All while being remote controlled from the comfort of earth.

The rich never needed robots to buy the police. There is more than enough people willing to be cruel and inhuman in exchange for lunch money and the feeling of superiority.

Post reply on HN