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> you can realize they're just large puppets. We've had dancing puppets like Walt Disney's Small World.

This is hugely understating just how difficult it is for a biped/quadruped robot to move around in the world without continuously falling, getting stuck, etc. Like seriously, seriously underestimates it.

Watch this video to see spot walk over some terrain that even people struggle with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7s1sr4JdlI

Doing it without a tether for a reasonable timeframe (30+ minutes) is insane! Disney animatronics don't even come close to the complexity of these robots (even though what Disney has done is for sure impressive).

> robots still generally can't interact with humans or the environment in an unstructured way.

I think this is pretty short sighted, and you're going to have your mind changed quite rapidly in the next couple of years. This style of robot has definitely hit a threshold of price and usefulness, not unlike what happened for drones just ten years ago.

I could be wrong, but I hope I'm not! It really feels like things are moving at a crazy speed in the robotics field right now.

⬐ meheleventyone

> Watch this video to see spot walk over some terrain that even people struggle with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7s1sr4JdlI

Where's the terrain humans struggle with? At the most extreme it climbs a small mound of rocks and gets stuck.

It's cool we can build something that can do that semi-autonomously but it's lightyears from being as capable as anything biological.

⬐ reportingsjr

You and I are around different people! Yes, that pile of rocks isn't too big of a deal for young and agile people, but try to imagine the 10th percentile of people walking over that. Older, not as fit. That rock pile would be a struggle.

I don't disagree that it's still far away from a human in good shape, but there are certainly a significant percentage of people who wouldn't be able to walk over that, or would slip a few times while doing it.

That sort of terrain is also no joke if you have to traverse it for large stretches, even for athletic people. It's very similar to mildly rough mountaineering areas and that will wear you down quickly!

⬐ meheleventyone

Comparing the best robot to the worst human isn't very interesting.

⬐ roytries

Indeed, people struggle with? Adam Savage (53 years old) navigates that pile of rocks without problems, while controlling the robot. Never even needing to use his hands.

The work Boston Dynamics does is extremely impressive, but they've been at it since 1992. Each year they make small and incremental changes. But its still a century away from a human, dog, or cat. Not a revolution, just slow and steady evolution of knowledge, software, and hardware.

⬐ drdavid

The robotics field has been moving at a crazy speed for decades.

I think people, probably not yourself, underestimate the complexity of things like bipedal movement. This display was really quite impressive.

⬐ joe_the_user

>> robots still generally can't interact with humans or the environment in an unstructured way.

> I think this is pretty short sighted, and you're going to have your mind changed quite rapidly in the next couple of years.

Oh, I'd love to see that change. That would be a change in reality, not perception. It wouldn't force me to change my belief that as things stand now, walking have been an ongoing failure and disappointment.. See:

Edit: Also, I should admit I'm discounting the serious engineering challenge of just getting robots to walk on uneven ground by itself. Doing seeming simple stuff like has where the progress of idk 30 years has appeared. But anything more than those ultra-simple things really wasn't happened. I'd still stick with 90% of impressive is puppeting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Robotics_Challenge

⬐ plutonorm

Most people think like you do. But then again most people are blindsided by revolutionary change.

⬐ Gatsky

A great feat of engineering... but uh what is the actual use case for Spot?

⬐ blackrock

K9minators

⬐ sabujp

is this a marketing video?

⬐ tachyonbeam

Very likely. It's probably no coincidence that Adam Savage is among the first to get access to one.

⬐ jcims

Hopefully he puts some kind of folding quadrotor setup on it so it can fly in and out of places. Imagine something like this on its back - https://www.best-quadcopter.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/m...

⬐ jcims

Aside from when the box was first opened, I don't think I've ever seen a pristine Spot robot. To borrow an old tag, they seem to take a licking and keep on ticking.

Here is the link for anyone else that wants to watch it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7s1sr4JdlI