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

IRonCub: A Humanoid Robot Designed to Fly Like Iron Man

spectrum.ieee.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–55 of 55 posts

Re: IRonCub: A Humanoid Robot Designed to Fly Like Iron Man

#51

Post by voidUpdate »

meindnoch wrote: post #20
voidUpdate wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's being advertised as being used for generic disaster recovery, where it's beneficial to be human-shaped (human infrastructure is designed for humans, so its easier to interface with it if the robot is human-shaped too), so they just strapped some jets on it to take it to the disaster zone itself

>It's being advertised as being used for generic disaster recovery, where it's beneficial to be human-shaped (human infrastructure is designed for humans, so its easier to interface with it if the robot is human-shaped too) Ummmm, disaster recovery is hard precisely because the infrastructure (e.g. a collapsed building) ceased to be suitable for humans.

The way in which it isn't suitable for humans depends on the disaster though. If somewhere is flooded or on fire, a humanoid robot will probably be able to navigate it better than a quadrupedal one. If the building is collapsed, sure

Re: IRonCub: A Humanoid Robot Designed to Fly Like Iron Man

#52

Post by MSFT_Edging »

busterarm wrote: post #35
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #5

Can we please be honest with ourselves for a second and call out the ridiculousness of the "find a lost hiker" and "disaster relief" excuses used by kill-bot companies? Who is this robot going to save with glowing hot turbine engines on it's fore-arms. This is kill-bot tech put on the iCub to get articles in circulation.

If you truly wanted to do this, the Russia-Ukraine conflict has already proven that you can drop bombs via drones with pinpoint accuracy for dirt cheap. If somebody's going to work on something a million times more the cost and a similar fractional multiple of the effectiveness, maybe you can take them at face value that they're not building a murderbot (at least not by design).

> something a million times more the cost and a similar fractional multiple of the effectiveness

I assure you that drone warfare isnt cutting down on any r&d budget at the pentagon. the whole point is to spend that money.

Re: IRonCub: A Humanoid Robot Designed to Fly Like Iron Man

#53

Post by busterarm »

MSFT_Edging wrote: post #52
busterarm wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you truly wanted to do this, the Russia-Ukraine conflict has already proven that you can drop bombs via drones with pinpoint accuracy for dirt cheap. If somebody's going to work on something a million times more the cost and a similar fractional multiple of the effectiveness, maybe you can take them at face value that they're not building a murderbot (at least not by design).

> something a million times more the cost and a similar fractional multiple of the effectiveness I assure you that drone warfare isnt cutting down on any r&d budget at the pentagon. the whole point is to spend that money.

And the first line in the article here says that this is being developed by a university in Italy.

"The Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) is primarily funded by the Italian State but also receives significant funding from European Union research programs, such as the European Research Council (ERC) and Horizon Europe".

No pentagon money here.

Re: IRonCub: A Humanoid Robot Designed to Fly Like Iron Man

#54

Post by TheWookieDavid »

fragmede wrote: post #45
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #5

Can we please be honest with ourselves for a second and call out the ridiculousness of the "find a lost hiker" and "disaster relief" excuses used by kill-bot companies? Who is this robot going to save with glowing hot turbine engines on it's fore-arms. This is kill-bot tech put on the iCub to get articles in circulation.

It's dual use technology. It can and will be used to find lost hikers, it's just that it can also be used for nefarious purposes.

Yeah, it could find lost hikers, while starting multiple forest fires just by flying low to the ground. Its hands are replaced by jets. This is not designed for rescue purposes nor would it be a good tool for rescue purposes.

Re: IRonCub: A Humanoid Robot Designed to Fly Like Iron Man

#55

Post by fragmede »

TheWookieDavid wrote: post #54
fragmede wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's dual use technology. It can and will be used to find lost hikers, it's just that it can also be used for nefarious purposes.

Yeah, it could find lost hikers, while starting multiple forest fires just by flying low to the ground. Its hands are replaced by jets. This is not designed for rescue purposes nor would it be a good tool for rescue purposes.

https://xkcd.com/2128/ also applies
Post reply on HN