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How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#71

Post by rendall »

yarcob wrote: post #60
wiz21c wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"offline trajectory optimization" this doesn't sound good... I read this as : "we've made those robots do things they won't be able to do autonomously thanks to massive amounts of offline optimization". Sure it's impressive, but I wonder how it helps the casual viewer to get an idea of what these robots can actually do. One could say that's the whole point of PR but... It sure helped BD engineer to push their robots…

Offline trajectory optimisation sounds a lot like a dancer training dance moves?

I heard it as motion capture data cleaning, getting the data into a form the robot could use

Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#72

Post by rendall »

aj7 wrote: post #15

Awful interview. Almost nothing of interest revealed.

I thought it was a fine interview. It didn't dive deep into the technical aspects, but that wasn't its purpose. It gave me an overview and synopsis of some of the factors involved in producing something like that

Also, the people involved including the author are participating on this page. With respect, this guideline might be relevant:

Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.

Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#73

Post by notretarded »

jessep wrote: post #2

My sister choreographed this dance, and I’m a little unhappy that she isn’t mentioned here by name. She’s brilliant, and I want her to get credit. Her name is Monica Thomas. Her dance company is called Mad King Thomas. Here is her brand new Twitter account: https://mobile.twitter.com/onetruebonc Her sense of humor is captured by her choice of the song “Do you love me”, which is a winking but still charming reference…

Why would they? What business sense would this make? The image they want to portray would be that they are capable of everything in-house - Their staff are not only experts in robotics but also art too. In reality it's not quite true.

Just like you also don't see them saying "Thanks to PwC for developing our software."

Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#74

Post by arethuza »

b112 wrote: post #44
systemvoltage wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humanity's goal should be to build AGI and let robots take over - we're doing it, willingly or unwillingly. No need to have blobs of meat hanging around. Intelligence itself is human thing. Whether it needs to have a body / physical metabolic processes to run by injesting cheetos all day, is totally absurd. Evolutionary processes have given us so much unnecessary baggage. Pure abstract intelligence is pretty damn hum…

This is bound to happen. There is no way it wouldn't I believe, of course in short term, we gotta worry about stuff like politics, solving hunger and world peace. There will never be world peace, unless humanity is no longer human, or alternately, under the boot of an all encompassing empire ruled by force. To believe otherwise, is to believe history teaches us nothing, nor our knowledge of human behaviour. To assume…

Personally, I'd hope we end up with something a bit like The Culture - which is perhaps the most positive scenario for any society made up of 'humans' and powerful AIs.

Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#76

Post by jcpham2 »

unixhero wrote: post #27
jessep wrote: post #2

My sister choreographed this dance, and I’m a little unhappy that she isn’t mentioned here by name. She’s brilliant, and I want her to get credit. Her name is Monica Thomas. Her dance company is called Mad King Thomas. Here is her brand new Twitter account: https://mobile.twitter.com/onetruebonc Her sense of humor is captured by her choice of the song “Do you love me”, which is a winking but still charming reference…

She did an amazing job and is talented for sure. I still absolutely hate those robots. This won't end well.

Uncanny valley is so real.

Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#77

Post by ralfd »

iancmceachern wrote: post #45
cbozeman wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Goofing off, most likely. I haven't really thought of a use case for the home, although there's literally dozens of them. I actually wonder if it could function as an auto-dog walker for my organic dog on the days when I'm too swamped with work to do so. The thought of attaching a leash to my dog and the leash to Spot while I'm indisposed is actually kind of attractive. I would have to make sure my dog has already do…

I wonder, would the time spent programming and integrating all this be less than just walking the dog? For me, this would defeat the purpose of having my dogs my our life. Having worked in robotics quit a bit this is a common trap. There are plenty of things that we can think of for a robot to do, but most of them would require more concessions, programming and maintenance time than it takes to just do the task, or h…

https://www.bostondynamics.com/spot

They promise "repeatable autonomous missions to gather consistent data", so my guess is programming a route and mapping terrain is reasonably easy. There is also remote control and camera access, if that could be triggered to automatically notify you (or a dog walking central command service supervising), for example when your dog is barking/complaining or resists to being dragged, it could go a long way to solve dog walking (for smaller dogs).

Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#78

Post by thih9 »

jessep wrote: post #2

My sister choreographed this dance, and I’m a little unhappy that she isn’t mentioned here by name. She’s brilliant, and I want her to get credit. Her name is Monica Thomas. Her dance company is called Mad King Thomas. Here is her brand new Twitter account: https://mobile.twitter.com/onetruebonc Her sense of humor is captured by her choice of the song “Do you love me”, which is a winking but still charming reference…

> would require so little from Boston Dynamics

We don’t know that. Perhaps it was important for them to not have credits in the video; e.g. to keep attention on the robots. Your sister is credited elsewhere in BD’s article, see other comment [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25682864

Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#79

Post by inglor_cz »

blackrock wrote: post #18
cbozeman wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing scary about these robots, any more than my Roomba is scary. They are tools, and like all tools, they can be used for nefarious purposes or for the benefit of mankind.

This robot is Version 1.0. And yes, it’s just a puppet. For now. A human controls its movements. What’s missing is a brain. And that will come in Version 4.0. Or whenever they perfect a decision and control system, for fully autonomous decision making. That’s when you should worry. Or rather. You’re probably safe, if you live in one of the western allied nations. That is your privilege. But a black, brown, red, or ye…

It is crazy to see from the outside how the color-of-skin obsession permeates every single conversation right now. I hope that the USA will be able to find some other topics and arguments one day.

It is also false in this context. One of the most massive bombing campaigns in recent history was in European Serbia, and the hotspots of today (Syria, Iran) have a population that looks like Greeks.

As for black: the only predominantly white country that systematically sticks its fingers into Subsaharan Africa is France. The only external power that grows its presence in the Third World overall is China and given how they treat their own population, I would not be surprised if the next wave of pseudocolonial wars was Beijing's.

Re: How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance

#80

Post by bigbizisverywyz »

jessep wrote: post #2

My sister choreographed this dance, and I’m a little unhappy that she isn’t mentioned here by name. She’s brilliant, and I want her to get credit. Her name is Monica Thomas. Her dance company is called Mad King Thomas. Here is her brand new Twitter account: https://mobile.twitter.com/onetruebonc Her sense of humor is captured by her choice of the song “Do you love me”, which is a winking but still charming reference…

I personally would have loved to see a human dancer dancing alongside the robots, that would have given an interesting comparison.
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