Those Boston Dynamics robots are getting less and less clunky, but they’re still firmly occupying the uncanny valley. Their latest, Spot Mini, is impressive, but when you see the one with an extensible manipulator…
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Because these guys have a sense of humor and really have fun doing what they’re doing.
They should do one with three legs and two heads.
OK, so banana peels they can handle — but what about turtle shells?
Marketing slogan: Your plastic pal who’s fun to be with! (lets see the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation sue me from the future! Hah!)
So where is this on Kurzweil’s technology curve?
But how much more awesome would it be if the video was produced by Dahir Insaat?
Hm, no mounted gatling gun? Next model maybe? At the very least replace the manipulator with something sharp and pointy. Or teach it how to toss coke cans at someone’s head. And then replace the cans with something sharp and pointy.
These are to robotics what the DynaTAC was to smart phones. Can’t wait to see what we’ll have crawling around our houses in 20 years.
Thanks a lot, Dave.
Because… Kittens, Puppies, Crocodiles, Godzilla, and T-Rex !
#2 chigau:
Glad to see I wasn’t the only one who thought of a Pierson’s Puppeteer! :-)
How about an amphibious one with seven heads and ten horns? That would really get the fundies going!
“Ooo, ooo, ooo, I know what that looks like!”
[reads comments]
Four plus hours late. Dammit.
[surrenders his geek badge]
Make that five plus..
It’s OK, FossilFishy.
Time zones.
did they give it face because without one it begins to look too creepy and dangerous after a while kind of like putting a big pink bow on a doberman.?
uncle frogy
The Daleks will have to watch out – there guys can go up stairs…
In that last scene, I thought sure it was going to lift its leg.
They can climb stairs. And not even the good old banana peel can stop them…
@doubting thomas 18
I had the same thought.
Okay, now I want my electric sheep.
As several other Niven readers have already observed, it would only take a couple minor changes to make it into a recognizable alien species. My thought was to replace the clunky jointed arm with the sinuous metal snake of a Tesla recharging cable. Or two of them, of course!
Because we need to know who the baddies are, duh.
Kind of reminds me of The Puppeteers species from Larry Niven’s work.
It’s not as much the Uncanny-Valley-skull-manipulator-on-a-dog’s-body as the constant plasticky movement sound around the house which got me. Three minutes of that and I’d kick the bloody thing out of an upper-floor window into the neighbour’s pond. “Swim your way out of that, you bastard!”
Obviously once it did, I’d be obligated to bow down and worship it as my new Metal God.
Has Boston Dynamics considered making these things able to jump or sprint? I think I remember seeing one video where a quadruped could do a little hop.
#26, emergence:
They had a tethered test robot (cheetah) that did those things. They have an untethered one (wildcat) that can run quite swiftly but I don’t think it jumps. Mind you, this video is nearly 3 years old already, so they might have improved it by now (and maybe made it quieter).