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

231–240 of 242 posts

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#231

Post by DonnyV »

Valgrim wrote: post #230
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.

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…

Yes but police have organizations that manage them that are ran by people that can be influenced or jailed for doing the wrong thing. Owning a robot army is a totally different level of power over people. Robots do exactly what their owners tell them to do and don't have a Union or any group to answer too.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#232

Post by lawrenceyan »

rm445 wrote: post #226
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.

How far off would you estimate a company like Boston Dynamics is from production then? (Say with existing levels of industrialization in the form of non-humanoid robots already commonly used as a benchmark/baseline)

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#233

Post by 411111111111111 »

bamboozled wrote: post #224
411111111111111 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your phrasing makes it sound as if most people alive have terrible living conditions and high early mortality... Which is incorrect.

The misery is pretty localized in Africa and some places in the middle east, which is less then 20% of the population.

Life could be better in a lot of places, but it's incomparably better to life under the churches in the dark ages for example.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#234

Post by UnFleshedOne »

swayvil wrote: post #192
UnFleshedOne wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much easier (and already being done) with drones.

What would these legged, ground-traversing robots be better at than the flying variety? Sweeping tunnels? Construction?

I guess anything involving lifting, manipulation and narrow places.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#235

Post by swayvil »

UnFleshedOne wrote: post #234
swayvil wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would these legged, ground-traversing robots be better at than the flying variety? Sweeping tunnels? Construction?

I guess anything involving lifting, manipulation and narrow places.

Sex. Definitely sex

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#236

Post by rm445 »

lawrenceyan wrote: post #232
rm445 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How far off would you estimate a company like Boston Dynamics is from production then? (Say with existing levels of industrialization in the form of non-humanoid robots already commonly used as a benchmark/baseline)

My guess (as an engineer but not in that field) is that some sort of breakthrough is needed or it will be a long slog. The general problem of robots navigating arbitrary spaces will probably be solved by wider advances in machine learning. Because a robot mapping its environment, planning its motion, and carrying out that motion while adapting to the dynamic environment, isn't being treated as a classic control systems problem any more, but fed into trained nets. It's too broad a problem for even sophisticated control systems, in the general case.

Even once robots can do amazing things, there needs to be an economic use case that's compatible with what they can do, how they're powered, and how long they can work for.

Similar to quadcopters in a way - they have changed the world in some limited ways, but so far they haven't scaled up to carry people or out to deliver parcels, so they remain niche. If someone figures out one day that robots can deliver burritos/assassinate dissidents/stack shelves efficiently, it could be a quick takeoff.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#237

Post by tempestn »

prepend wrote: post #18

What can I do to defend myself against killer robots? Seriously, is there something simple that I can put in my glovebox of my car to use in case these robots start getting scary? Is there a simple household good that will work well against these, until they start explicitly shielding against stuff?

Why is it that so many people's thoughts go to "killer robots" when they see a humanoid robot, but not when they see, for instance, a quad copter? Or an assembly line robotic arm? Is it literally just Terminator? I guess more likely Terminator was made because it plays on a deeper psychological phemonenon—a fear of entities that look similar to us, but different. (Which presumably evolves from a rational fear of hostile outsiders to one's tribe. The same instinct that causes other maladaptive impulses in modern society, like jingoism and racism.)

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#238

Post by grkvlt »

prepend wrote: post #18

What can I do to defend myself against killer robots? Seriously, is there something simple that I can put in my glovebox of my car to use in case these robots start getting scary? Is there a simple household good that will work well against these, until they start explicitly shielding against stuff?

shaped charge type 40mm HE grenades would be fine if you have to defend against a heavily armoured killer robot, but ones like this with exposed hydraulic lines will fall over and curl up after a well placed knife attack, or maybe 12ga flechette rounds from a shotgun if you need a ranged attack.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#239

Post by int_19h »

X6S1x6Okd1st wrote: post #109
xornox wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dystopia started when we invented farming 10 000 years ago.

Yuval is that you? I have some sympathy for this view, but there's also the fact that at this point we've basically solved hunger from a societal point of view. Deprivation of calories from a population now happens because of war or intentional. At the current time we no longer are at the whim of natural causes of hunger.

Well, it's not quite the same as saying that the invention of agriculture made the current state of affairs inevitable. There's a middle ground between historical determinism, and "anything goes" - some paths become more or less likely depending on how things go, but it's never a railroad.

So, I would agree with OP in that it started with invention of agriculture, in a sense that that gave rise to rigidly hierarchical societies, and centralized states that could extract surplus from their citizens and spend it on warfare and other forms of oppression. But we didn't have to take that route, and it doesn't mean that agriculture per se is bad.

Re: Atlas robot does parkour

#240

Post by int_19h »

SamPatt wrote: post #217
beeboop wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's rare, at least in the US, to find people who are aware of how fucked up capitalism is. Or have ever given any real thought to how ethical it is. But its atrocities are all around us in plain sight, every time someone dies from lack of healthcare, food, or shelter - or crimes and accidents that happen in the course of pursuing these essentials. To live in a world perfectly capable (in a purely physical an…

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.

Not quite. We've seen multiple attempts at the same non-capitalist system.

OTOH how many people are aware of Rojava or the Zapatistas, and their track record?

Post reply on HN