Google dumping Boston Dynamics

[enso]

@Brainspore

Hard to blame Google. Boston Dynamics’ signature technological achievement, the “BigDog” project, is over a decade old now and has yet to find any practical applications. They do interesting work but not much that seems likely to spur amazing tech revolutions in the foreseeable future.

It sounds like they were unwilling and uninterested in working with Google Management as well. That never bodes well for an acquired company.

[GulliverFoyle]

@OtherMichael

FOUR Laws, hombre:

How quickly we forget the Zeroth Law of Robotics logically and unavoidably implied by the First Law: a robot must not harm, nor through inaction allow harm to come to, humanity. And let’s be honest, that means some of us will be first against the wall when the robotic uprising starts.

@IronEdithKidd

Wait a tic. Are you hinting that these humanoid robots are being developed in order to eliminate human USPS employees?

USPS still has human mail-carriers? Why don’t I ever see them?

[LeopardSeal]

@jerwin

I was impressed.

That is impressive. Make it a little quieter, tack on a couple of cameras and thermal sensors and you’ve got a pretty capable spy drone.

[GulliverFoyle]

@OtherMichael

Climbing stairs? Opening doors? Hiding in closets? Making use of available transportation?

Dalek Flies For The First Time! - Remembrance Of The Daleks - Doctor Who

[daneel]

@GulliverFoyle

How quickly we forget the Zeroth Law of Robotics

Well, I don’t.

[Clifton]

… and I said “Who is this really?”
and the voice said

@OtherMichael

1. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor low power nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
2. A robot may not injure a package or, through inaction, allow a package to come to harm.
3. A robot must obey the orders given it by management except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
4. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First Three Laws.

[OtherMichael]

They’re American robots. Made in America.

[Clifton]

Shooting, or non-shooting?

[dave_b]

What about using octopi as models more arms get through tighter spaces built in camouflage. Neat beak.

[OtherMichael]

Non-recycling, I think:

Which reminds me, we probably don’t have much to fear, if we all wear our sneakers:

[OtherMichael]

Not a bad idea; there’s actually enough research on “soft robots” that it’s got it’s own tag on BB:

http://boingboing.net/tag/soft-robot

Although it’s only got two posts, and there are other soft robot posts.

my favorite (in the tag):

Weird SPAM-colored soft robot moves like a zombie hot dog

but also:

Robot fish and the dawn of "soft robots"

Open source soft robotic quadruped with many applications

[dave_b]

I guess air muscles and memory metal would be a good place to start.

[telecinese]

@Brainspore

What can a humanoid robot accomplish that a human or non-humanoid machine can’t do better?

One thing: honor Asimov’s vision.

From Caves of Steel:

“Thank you, Doctor. My question is, why humanoid robots? I mean that I’ve been taking them for granted all my life, but now it occurs to me that I don’t know the reason for their existence. Why should a robot have a head and four limbs? Why should he look more or less like a man?”

“You mean, why shouldn’t he be built functionally, like any other machine?”

“Right,” said Baley. “Why not?”

Dr. Gerrigel smiled a little. “Really, Mr. Baley, you are born too late. The early literature of robotics is riddled with a discussion of that very matter and the polemics involved were something frightful. If you would like a very good reference to the disputations among the functionalists and anti-functionalists, I can recommend Hanford’s ‘History of Robotics.’ Mathematics is kept to a minimum. I think you’d find it very interesting.”

“I’ll look it up,” said Baley, patiently. “Meanwhile, could you give me an idea?”

“The decision was made on the basis of economics. Look here, Mr. Baley, if you were supervising a farm, would you care to buy a tractor with a positronic brain, a reaper, a harrow, a milker, an automobile, and so on, each with a positronic brain; or would you rather have ordinary unbrained machinery with a single positronic robot to run them all. I warn you that the second alternative represents only a fiftieth or a hundredth the expense.”

“But why the human form?”

“Because the human form is the most successful generalized form in all nature. We are not a specialized animal, Mr. Baley, except for our nervous systems and a few odd items. If you want a design capable of doing a great many widely various things, all fairly well, you could do no better than to imitate the human form. Besides that, our entire technology is based on the human form. An automobile, for instance, has its controls so made as to be grasped and manipulated most easily by human hands and feet of a certain size and shape, attached to the body by limbs of a certain length and joints of a certain type. Even such simple objects as chairs and tables or knives and forks are designed to meet the requirements of human measurements and manner of working. It is easier to have robots imitate the human shape than to redesign radically the very philosophy of our tools.”

In short, it’s for saving on those costly AI brains.

There’s also this, from Robot Visions:

Surely, if we take on thinking partners––or, at the least, thinking servants––in the form of machines, we will be more comfortable with them, and will relate to them more easily, if they are shaped like humans.
It will be easier to be friends with human-shaped robots than with specialized machines of unrecognizable shape. And I sometimes think that, in the desperate straits of humanity today, we would be grateful to have nonhuman friends, even if they are only the friends we build ourselves.

Which is kind of depressing.

[Wanderfound]

They’ll eliminate all of us eventually. I fully expect my current profession (forestry restoration/preservation) to be largely replaced by autonomous weed-hunting robots within a few decades.

Assuming that we’re still doing conservation work by then, that is. At the moment, it seems more likely that we’ll be too busy with climate-driven wars and famines to bother with any sort of long- term concerns.

[Brainspore]

@telecinese

In short, it’s for saving on those costly AI brains.

Who could have predicted that the processors would end up being one of the cheapest parts of the 'bot?

[euansmith]

@SpaceGhost

… whom often aren’t even given proper armor due to cost…

I misread that as, “… whom often aren’t given power armor due to cost…”

[IronEdithKidd]

Your mail arrives by Schrodinger’s Mailman?

[daneel]

@IronEdithKidd

Schrodinger’s Mailman?

Never order your pets via that guy.

[anon78706664]

Why I don’t work at BD.

[anon78706664]

I fully expect my current profession (forestry restoration/preservation) to be largely replaced by autonomous weed-hunting robots within a few decades.

They’ve already built the tree-hunting ones. Or close to it, anyway, it wouldn’t take too much to automate a Scorpion King. Eep.