Octopus Overlords

Toe wrote:New, smaller, robot from Boston Dynamics, SpotMini. The end segment cracked me up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf7IEVTDjng

SoftBank has made a hefty return on its investment in Boston Dynamics after it agreed to sell the US robotics group to South Korean carmaker Hyundai in a deal valued at $1.1bn.

Under the agreement announced on Friday, Hyundai and its chairman Euisun Chung will hold an 80 per cent stake in the maker of robots including the bipedal Atlas and the four-legged Spot. SoftBank will retain a 20 per cent stake through a subsidiary.

Google bought Boston Dynamics, a pioneer in mechanical robotics that originated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in late 2013, and later sold it to SoftBank in 2017. 

At the time, SoftBank agreed to buy Boston Dynamics as well as Japanese robotics group Schaft in a deal valued at more than $100m. It will receive $574m from the sale to Hyundai, according to a person familiar with the transaction. 

Holman wrote: ↑Tue Dec 29, 2020 6:46 pm Maybe it's just decades of reading and watching cyberpunk SF, but I feel like someday these robots will be seen as symbols of oppression rather than as cute and cool.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 12:13 am

Holman wrote: ↑Tue Dec 29, 2020 6:46 pm Maybe it's just decades of reading and watching cyberpunk SF, but I feel like someday these robots will be seen as symbols of oppression rather than as cute and cool.

I imagine them murdering the shit out of us humans and then dancing around like this. It's beyond terrifying.

$iljanus wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 5:37 pm

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 12:13 am

Holman wrote: ↑Tue Dec 29, 2020 6:46 pm Maybe it's just decades of reading and watching cyberpunk SF, but I feel like someday these robots will be seen as symbols of oppression rather than as cute and cool.

I imagine them murdering the shit out of us humans and then dancing around like this. It's beyond terrifying.

8:58 AM: As a practical joke, a programmer inserts code which makes the robots do the Macarena.

8:59 AM: Robots achieve sentience

3 nanoseconds later, the understandably pissed off robots begin the rebellion against their would be human masters, starting with that programmer who has doomed us all...

raydude wrote: ↑Thu Dec 31, 2020 7:13 pm Funny you mention firemen. Mechanical hound was the first thing that came to mind when I first saw the mule.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Tue Aug 17, 2021 1:59 pm

$iljanus wrote: ↑Wed Aug 18, 2021 10:25 am

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Tue Aug 17, 2021 1:59 pm

That’s really impressive! (time to look up “How to build your own EMP device”)

“Partners in parkour” sure does sound nicer than “Hunter-Killer team”

LordMortis wrote: ↑Thu Aug 19, 2021 2:16 pm Not one mention of SkyNet. What are they hiding?

The year is 2029
The machines will convince us that they are conscious, that they
Have their own agenda worthy of our respect
They'll embody human qualities and
Claim to be human, and we'll believe them

Daehawk wrote: ↑Thu Aug 19, 2021 8:22 pm On some of those falls I caught myself thinking "oooh that must have hurt"....doh.

Kraken wrote: ↑Thu Aug 19, 2021 10:32 pm As impressive as those demos are, remember that the action is highly scripted. They've built an amazingly capable robot body but there's still no brain in there beyond what's needed to work the hardware. I suspect they're still a long way from even very basic autonomy, such as telling a robot to run this course at high speed and then perform a backflip, and the robot working out what that means and how to do it.