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DARPA and Boston Dynamics unveil a new humanoid robot
- Shivetya 13y agoWhat is the point of having it be bipedal? Would not the dog/four legged system work out better? You could still have it manipulate items with forelegs if you wanted but keep the inherit stability
- HNJohnC 13y agoThe reason is that human size and shape allows for replacing a human in any situation such as driving a vehicle or fitting into airline seats or what have you.
- finnw 13y agoA robot that drives a vehicle can be an integral part of that vehicle, likely far cheaper than a humanoid robot that fits in the seat (and also shares the human driver's disadvantage of poor peripheral vision.)
- Goronmon 13y agoThen how about being able to be a passenger in a vehicle with any special modification?
- mturmon 13y agoExactly. Entering a vehicle was one of the challenges in the most recent DARPA evaluation of teams developing high level control software for this robot.
- cookingrobot 13y agoYou could just use a pickup truck.
- robotresearcher 13y agoMost robots are not bipedal, for the reasons you state, among others. But if we want humanoid robots ever, we have to get started working with the form factor. There are plenty of technical problems to solve that are specific to this kind of platform. This robot => (more steps here ) => C3-PO => Terminator => Roy Batty. DARPA has a great record of pushing hard on technology that might sorta kinda work, but if it does it will have huge impact. Some of it works out better and faster than expected, with the ARPAnet as the prime example.
- snorkel 13y agoDoors, stairs, and ladders.
- blhack 13y agoBecause most of the parts of the world that are designed, are designed for bipedal things that occupy about 1.5 feet^2, and are about 6ft tall. Think about bigdog trying to walk through a house. It would have a lot of problems, because the house wasn't designed for something that looks like that.
- rralian 13y agoWell, actually big dogs do quite well walking through a house. They're quite popular. They just need to make BigDog a little smaller, and I think the four-legs approach would work quite well.
- dm2 13y agoI don't think 4 legs would be better. As you can see, balance is not an issue with quick enough joints and good software. The current ATLAS can easily balance on one leg. The other leg is just there to provide locomotion.
- NegativeK 13y agoOne of the original stated goals of Petman was to test uniform designs.
- uncoder0 13y agoI'm getting tired of extremetech blogspam and sensationalism. This source video was posted yesterday by me and didn't really make it anywhere. It seems I should get a voting ring and embellish my titles a bit more. If anyone wants to read up on the DRC the two latest press releases are here: http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2013/07/11.aspx http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2013/07/11.aspx http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2013/06/27.aspx http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2013/06/27.aspx.
- _mulder_ 13y agoI know what you mean. If it doesn't scream READ ME it doesn't get anywhere... However that's just how our brains work. Unlike ATLAS... we're only Human
- nsxwolf 13y agoI don't know. This pretty much looks like the Terminator to me. It just needs some good software and a gun. Google's self-driving car technology could be adapted into a formidable killing machine brain.
- robotresearcher 13y ago"It just needs some good software." This is of course the hard part. But this robot was built to be a common platform for DARPA to build a project around: the DARPA Humanoid Challenge. The idea is to supply a very expensive robot to a few groups and a simulation of it to lots of groups, and have them compete on the control software. No guns this time around.
- nsxwolf 13y agoWell, a bipedal humanoid robot that can walk on any terrain and can't easily be pushed over was also the hard part, and those problems are starting to look solved. Probably before these things are autonomous we're going to have these as human controlled drones, which is a pretty scary thought all by itself.
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- sbarre 13y agoThe stuff that Boston Dynamics is doing with DARPA funding feels like a current-generation parallel to how DARPA funded the early efforts at building the Internet. I suspect we will look back on these guys as some of the early pioneers of the yet-to-come ubiquitous robotics era.
- mempko 13y agoARPA funded the early efforts of building the internet.... the D came later
- sbarre 13y agoThanks for the clarification
- drivers99 13y agoBoth, really: 'ARPA, was renamed to "DARPA" (for Defense) in March 1972, then renamed "ARPA" again in February 1993, and then renamed "DARPA" again in March 1996.' (Copied from wikipedia.)
- mpyne 13y agoAnd each time some General somewhere noted 'Reorganized unit to align with modern mission goals' as a performance evaluation bullet item for themselves.
- bitwize 13y agoNow all we have to do is scale it up and we'll be ready for when the kaiju attack.
- kryten 13y agoCongratulations on making me snort tea up my nose :)
- CodeCube 13y agoSo pumped to see that!
- eli_gottlieb 13y agoCorrection: now all we have to do is extrude drills from it and we'll be ready for when the Anti-Spirals attack. >8-D
- mamcx 13y agoThe current geek want it, the future geek with the robotic gun in his head don't.
- jotm 13y agoDisaster recovery, assistance and space applications (asteroid mining?) are the only real applications of these robots. This is not going to be useful in the military. The only advantage it may have over humans is increased accuracy, and even then, a mobile gun platform on wheels will do a much better job. This robot is less mobile, less reliable, less endurable, much less smart and much less flexible than any average soldier. The only applications I can think of are extreme weather conditions (i.e. Antarctica and the Sahara desert), and even then it would probably fail fast. I don't think it's complete garbage, it's just that I don't see it being close to useful in real military applications this century.
- hedonist 13y ago"Real" military applications, perhaps not. "Pseudo-military" operations, i.e. in our rapidly militarizing civilian police forces, perhaps not so far off.
- robotresearcher 13y agoYou think a police robot is easier than a soldier robot? Why? Both services are deploying robots as fast as they can. Thousands are in Iraq and Afghanistan.
- finnw 13y ago> Thousands are in Iraq and Afghanistan Those are not humanoid.
- robotresearcher 13y agoRight, but the grandparent suggested that we'd see such robots in police applications before military. I'm asking why he thinks this is so. We are not seeing this with the non-humanoids.
- hedonist 13y agoCost of training per role is probably a pretty good metric.
- hedonist 13y agoGod this is awful. Just a matter of time before these beasts are used to serve search warrants, deal with "difficult" protests, etc.
- ratscabies 13y ago[Dick Jones directs Kinney to threaten ED-209. Kinney points a gun at the robot.] ED-209: Please put down your weapon. You have 20 seconds to comply. Dick Jones: I think you'd better do what he says, Mr. Kinney. [Alarmed, Kinney quickly tosses the gun away. ED-209 steps forward and growls menacingly.] ED-209: You now have 15 seconds to comply. You are in direct violation of Penal Code 1.13, Section 9. [Everyone in the room panics; Kinney tries to hide among them, but is pushed back into open range] ED-209: You have 5 seconds to comply. 4. 3. 2. 1. I am now authorized to use physical force.
- ianstallings 13y agoOr on the flip side, pulling someone from a burning building or performing CPR.
- Renaud 13y agoJudging by the budgets of the army and law enforcement against the various wars, abroad and local (drug enforcement for instance), I doubt that a lot of these robots will find their way in the underfunded fire stations or emergency services... Furthermore, since defence agencies are financing the development, it's more likely they will program the robots to be sharp shooters before they learn the more complex tasks of pulling people safely out of rubble and giving them CPR.
- lmg643 13y agoTerminator has always been one of my favorite movies, and reality has an uncanny way of getting us closer and closer to the fantasy. We justify this new technology in the same way - "it's for our protection"! Dictators run into trouble when the armies decide they won't attack a local population because, hey, it's their families and friends we're talking about. Robots eliminate that pesky detail. Imagine how a secession crisis, based on, say, widespread spying by the government on its own citizens, might be dealt with today versus fifty years from now. ----- If you were a resident of Afghanistan, the concept of a war against the robots is already a reality. From that perspective, is a fairly minor detail that the robots are currently piloted by people and not computers. And I expect the AI would get effective pretty quickly - I'm sure they will develop some effective way to identify a potential combatant based on either holding a weapon or some body language/temperature cues. This technology might not be field ready right now, but it won't be long. It's reasonable to expect that with some work, it would far exceed human capacity upon a few key dimensions - running speed, targeting ability, carrying armor/defensibility. Just like no human being can outrun even the crappiest car over any reasonable distance.
- adamio 13y agoIsn't this a nuclear weapon vs nuclear power type issue? We'll always have the capacity for evil, I'd expect an international ban on the use of robotic soliders after some period of mass destruction (we'll still have them sitting in a bunker just in case)
- Lambdanaut 13y agoI don't think so. I don't see them being as destructive as that. I think by the time they get to a level that's bannable, there will be far greater warfare threats, like millions of inch-long artificially intelligent flying swarm syringes(OF DEATH) filled with arsenic. I think they'll be far more useful as support units.
- adamio 13y agoGood point, These Darpa terminators are just the visible threat, its the classified nano robots that control us from inside that we should fear
- ianstallings 13y agoDamn, no robot balls to kick. There goes my plan. I think this is incredible actually. It's worth noting they tend to try not to show power tether feeding the thing. But once they get it all nailed it's gonna be amazing. Truly awesome.
- dicroce 13y agoUsed to think these things were cool but now that I can't trust my government anymore... I find them deeply disturbing.
- dm2 13y agoJust because they are being transparent with their research? 50 years ago the US govt had amazingly cool technology (SR-71, satellites, nukes, computers, submarines, lasers, chemical weapons) but it was kept halfway secretive. Just because some people are uncomfortable with new technology shouldn't mean that the government is untrustworthy or evil. If anything, the transparency makes them more trustworthy. The stuff the CDC works with is 1,000 times more destructive than any humanoid robot prototype. Imagine if they posted a video, "well, this little vial of liquid will cause your skin to fall off and your organs to melt." Do you think other countries are going to avoid this type of research? Humanoid robots have been developed in Japan for 20 years.
- drakeandrews 13y agoI think a video tour of the CDC's vaults would be quite interesting, personally.
- taylodl 13y agoWe really need to ratify and institute Isaac Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics) otherwise I'm afraid our future selves will regret it.
- eli_gottlieb 13y agoJust because it's a robot doesn't mean it's a Strong AI that would be capable of understanding the Three Laws. (Let alone that the Three Laws are necessarily the best core ethical code to stick in your bipedal sentient robots.)
- robotresearcher 13y agoThe three laws worked really well as a literary device exactly because they are completely inadequate as an design / engineering / ethical tool. The stories are about the problems caused by the three laws, and how interesting they are. No one who has thought about it a bit, and certainly not Asimov, would seriously recommend them as an engineering solution.
- lukifer 13y agoMoreover, he sidestepped misuse of the tech by claiming that the Laws were "hard-wired" into the design of the positronic brain. Not only could be the Laws not be over-written, it was literally impossible in Asimov's universe to create a robot that was without them. In real life, we know how trivial it would be to completely overwrite the operating system with arbritary software.
- hooo 13y agoWhat's the advantage of making the robot humanoid?
- marknutter 13y agoInteracting with a world built for humanoids, I would guess.
- jloughry 13y agoDoorways, access hatches, and the like are designed for human-sized and human-shaped entities to pass through them. Stairs are problematic for wheeled locomotion.
- kevincennis 13y agoSlightly off-topic, but the video of this thing's predecessor, BigDog, is simultaneously fascinating and hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2jvLalY6ubc https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2jvL...
- colmvp 13y agoWhy does it have two lenses on its head instead of just one?
- mturmon 13y agoTwo video cameras allow stereo vision for placing obstacles, etc., into a map for motion planning. This robot also uses a laser range finder for mapping, but there are trade offs between the two approaches, so often they are used together.
- doctoboggan 13y agoWhen the US uses robots like this in war (and it will) we will enjoy a significant reduction in casualties and probably an increase in battle victories. This will probably embolden future US leaders, similar to when the US had the only nuclear weapons. During the cold war we learned the hard way that time lowers costs of technology, and soon everyone had nuclear weapons. I am sure the same will happen with robotic warriors and I fear the day when a terrorist can pilot a drone over my home and kill me with the same prejudice we use when piloting drones in the middle east today. My only hope is that some politicians also understand this and move to create international robotic warrior regulations and treaties. I am skeptical of this happening however. It is always more fun to lord your power over your enemies today than to have some foresight.
- nooneelse 13y agoHaving an international inspection system to watch for the development of nuclear weapons would seem a much easier task than one that would be needed to monitor for the development of robotic warrior/weapon systems. The pieces needed for the later can much more easily look like normal production/assembly tool development given that they are, in fact, largely the same pieces.
- sanoli 13y agoI'd like to know about its energy consumption, and how long would it operate with today's best battery technologies. That seems to me to be one of the bigger hurdles for turning this into something operational, but I might be wrong. Still, it's 330 lbs to move on two legs (future versions of course will be lighter, but, being military, it probably can't be all lightweight stuff). Anyone here with more knowledge about this care to give their opinion?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- racecar789 13y agoLooks like it has the Matrix of Leadership in its chest, just like Optimus Prime.