
New Video of BigDog Quadruped Robot Is So Stunning It's Spooky - paulsb
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww
======
ericb
One thing that struck me was when it was kicked or almost fell, I felt a
little bad for it. I can see where the general public might someday award
robots rights because we instinctually anthropomorphize them. I felt silly--I
"know" it's just software, but what about the rest of the world with the same
instincts and no understanding that's it's mindless code?

~~~
henning
I felt kind of bad in Trevor Blackwell's latest video where he was stopping
Dexter from moving towards him. :(

I started constructing dialogs in my head along the lines of "Father, why
don't you love me?"

~~~
ivankirigin
dexter: "one day, old man, you'll pay for this"

~~~
henning
the arrival of LOLbots is inevitable.

~~~
alex_c
Too late:

<http://lolbots.com/>

(went there to check if the domain's still available)

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mattjones
This excites me. If they become common, people are going to spend a lot of
time exploring the world -- an antidote to sitting behind your laptop all day.

These things would make great pack animals. When you go hiking, you'll be able
to toss your gear into one of these things and have it trot along behind you.
You'll be able to take more risks because robots will be able to rescue you
from tight places. If you get tired or sick, you'll be able to ride them.

It's funny to think that the streets of San Francisco in 2100 might
superficially look like a town in a developing country. ("Oh, those aren't
mules in the street, they're robots.")

~~~
jonah
My question is why not a real mule? More flexible refueling options, has
already been through many iterations, and not nearly as expensive. Seriously.

~~~
mechanical_fish
The price tag is not a bug, it's a feature. What, you think DARPA would pay
you millions of dollars to invent a real mule? Buck Rodgers movies didn't have
mules!

I will say, though, that compared to the typical military-industrial
spendthrift extravaganza, this project looks really worthwhile. Think:
_powered prosthetics for quadriplegics_. Think: _remote exploration of Martian
mountains_. Think: _lots of generally applicable algorithms for real-time
physics_.

~~~
Prrometheus
>Think: remote exploration of Martian mountains.

Think: Donkey in spacesuit

------
nazgulnarsil
It's getting scary. It's not that we're going to have robots going haywire and
killing people on its own. It's that the elite crust of humanity is going to
use it againstt us. Think blackwater is bad now? How about when they're not
even human beings?

The thing keeping the elites in check for all of human history has been that
they can't get too crazy or their own soldiers will mutiny. Hitler was a study
in charismatic leadership. He was able to commit atrocities only because the
german populace liked him so much. WHat attrocities will be possible when it
is impossible for your soldiers to disobey?

~~~
1gor
What's scary is how much this comment reminds me of Reddit...

~~~
euccastro
To be honest, I'm quite tired of all this "ugh, this is _so_ reddit!" I wish
people would discuss the (de)merits of comments in their own terms.

~~~
1gor
OK. I'll explain why it reminds me of reddit.

The author of the comment in question uses tired populist cliché ( __elites
__) and tries to impose their own political views on the reader ( __you think
blackwater is bad __).

Which is likely to generate a long, heated and shallow political debate rather
than a discussion about the technology (or about the social implications of
the technology).

~~~
rms
Blackwater being bad is not a political view; it is close to moral truth. I
have talked to multiple US soldiers back from Iraq who have described
Blackwater committing what would normally be war crimes. However, Blackwater
is not subject to laws, so they're not war crimes.

~~~
rms
Details of one of the incidents:

Soldier was in the Air Force, in northern Iraq near the Iranian border. They
had a warrant to raid a house looking for a weapons cache. They did the raid
with some guys from Blackwater. When they got inside, there was a guy laying
on the couch watching TV. Normally, anyone inside a house during a raid would
be put in flexcuffs. A guy from Blackwater just shot him, while he was laying
on the couch.

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cheponis
I worked on the original hopping/jumping/running robots at CMU and later MIT
with Marc Raibert. I can assure you that everything done was above-board,
published, and open. Dr. Raibert is one of those rare
scientist/engineer/entrepreneur types who is interested in progress for
people. He was asked by DARPA to develop this vehicle, so he wanted to help
them out.

The Sci-Fi stuff in these comments are, well, crazy.

~~~
jrsims
Well, thank goodness for Dr. Raibert. And while we're at it, thank goodness
for Albert Einstein.

It's the people who would exploit the technology developed by these benign
characters that frightens me.

So it is perfectly reasonable to be paranoid about emerging technologies that
have the capacity for great good or great evil.

------
andreyf
The Boston Dynamics site is here:

<http://www.bostondynamics.com/content/sec.php?section=BigDog>

It seems to me that there is a lot of promising work that will be done in this
area of robotics. There is a recently published book on this...

[http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&...](http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11003)

...which suggests we should evolve brains and bodies together in order to get
the most natural/most efficient gaits from them.

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boredguy8
I was watching thinking, "Yawn". Then it got hit -hard- in the side and use
its 'elbows' to stabilize itself. I'm just glad it doesn't hit back (yet).

~~~
WilliamLP
Yes, wait until it figures out that the best way to stay upright is to subdue
the human before the kick can happen!

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TrevorJ
It seems like a very robust system, and the way it displays the ability to
fail gracefully really demonstrates some amazing software. I am very impressed
that they are able to un-tether it as well. The fact that they apparently were
able to get the power plant and the processing hardware onboard is really very
impressive.

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ivankirigin
I love this robot. It is the right way to do legged locomotion.

Leave it to "a few guys in a garage" to crush Honda's 15 year effort with
Asimo. Granted, those few guys were key in the MIT leg lab...

Note that BDI is all about the mechanics. They haven't done much work on the
perception side of things. If you work in that area, contact them.

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alex_c
It actually makes me think of a robot horse more than a dog.

Does that mean in 20 years we'll all be riding robot horses around?

Once again, the Japanese are way ahead of us...
<http://www.absoluteanime.com/saber_rider/index.gif>

~~~
motley_fool
I want my Chevaline, dangit!

------
Goronmon
You know, I knew there was something weirdly familiar about watching that
video.

Then someone remarked that it reminded them of a Hunter from Half-Life 2. Now
I'm scared.

~~~
alex_c
Here's the headcrab:

[http://www.bostondynamics.com/content/sec.php?section=Little...](http://www.bostondynamics.com/content/sec.php?section=LittleDog)

~~~
gojomo
And the standalone sentry machine-gun came out from Samsung a while back:

[http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/samsung_develops_machine...](http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/samsung_develops_machine_gun_sentry_robot_costs_200k.php)

Forget the headcrabs -- what about those flying chainsaws in HL2?

Also: will the high school curriculum ever catch up? One of the wackiest 'long
bets' offered:

"By the year 2150, over 50% of schools in the USA or Europe will require
classes in defending against robot attacks."
[http://discuss.longbets.org/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=86](http://discuss.longbets.org/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=86)

------
s3graham
Wow, really impressive. The ice was amazing (though as someone with bad knees,
transferred anthropomorphization makes me cringe).

Does anyone know why 4 legs was chosen? 4 seems better than 2 for
stabilization, but why not 5, or 6, or 8? Maybe looking like a familiar
friendly animal is an end goal?

~~~
huherto
Probably the 8 leg design was already tried by nature and it was not
successful for large animals.

~~~
pchristensen
Whether in nature or manufacture, those legs aren't free. Is four more legs
worth the energy required to grow/build them, and could the mental processing
power necessary to run them be used better somewhere else?

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wallflower
T3 is inevitable..

2-legged animals are no match for 4-legged robots that can't even be _knocked_
_over_ \- just ask the target of a K-9 pursuit dog

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icey
This really has enormous implications over a lot of fields, not just military.
I can see this technology being used in prosthetics, in home-care (walking
bots), and all over the service industry.

The first thing I thought when I saw this video was "what's the stock symbol
for this company?".

~~~
tokipin
what's interesting to me is it's not even that difficult to get life-like,
self-balancing, responsive motion, etc with basic things like feedback loops
(eg segway.) i don't know what to blame most robots' relative rudimentaryness
on except their designers' lack of knowledge about things like that. to me the
difficulty is much more in the physical mechanics than in the software. though
after you get the mechanics down, the software would become the challenge

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paulsb
I can't decide if the bit where he tries to kick it over or the bit on the ice
is best.

~~~
chengmi
I think the ice part is better--I doubt any animal would have recovered from
that without falling on its side. What I really want to see is a bloopers reel
from early in the project.

~~~
tim2
It seems that it is much easier to stay up with three or four legs than two.
Just lock them into a slightly outward direction and you cannot fall. If
you're on one or two though, you've really got to balance the rest of the
system much more carefully.

~~~
iamwil
Your comment got me thinking. From a technical point of view of traversing
over unknown and uneven terrain, there really is no reason to go with bipedal,
especially if it's easier to do control systems for tri or quadraped robots.
Of the handful that can be bipedal (primates, bears, birds), it's not their
preferred mode of movement. However, it's probably a psychological
disadvantage for the robots to be 3 or 4 legged and work along side humans in
a job that requires it to be treated as a human, like a waiter, house
companion, etc. That alone is reason enough to continue bipedal robotic
research.

~~~
carpal
There are only two real advantages to bipeds:

1) Height 2) Use of spare limbs for tools

Height doesn't seem to be much of an advantage for robots at this stage, and I
think that robots could have 6 limbs with no problem. Therefore, biped robots
are really only a novelty.

~~~
SwellJoe
3) Use of human devices that are biped specific

Ladders, automobiles and heavy machinery, household equipment, etc. all rule
out quadrupeds.

While it would be possible to custom-build all of this stuff to be usable by a
quadruped, it means you then have to have two of everything if you plan to
cohabitate with a robot assistant. From the perspective of assistance robots,
it's not going to be possible to accomplish everything without bipedal bots.

I think wheeled bots (like Trevor's Monty) will also be a great option--
probably a tenth the cost of a walking mechanism, an order of magnitude more
speed and endurance, etc. But they'll still be unsuitable for many assistance
robot tasks. Stairs, for example. And unlike the Daleks, leveling the building
will not suffice as a solution to the problem of climbing stairs.

~~~
carpal
Well, not necessarily. Those devices aren't biped specific- they're specific
to thing with grasping mechanisms.

Who's to say a quadruped robot can't have 4 feet + 1 or 2 grapsing mechanisms?
Or have two front feet that are also capable of grasping?

~~~
iamwil
While you can certainly have a 4 legged robot, 2 armed helping you around the
house or a hospital, only using grasping mechanisms to climb the ladder to
adjust the satellite dish on the roof, help you with the dishes, or get you
out of bed, I think it's important to consider the reaction people have to a
robot's form factor given its job.

You and I might think it's really cool to have 4 feet and two arms (like a
centaur!), but if a robot reminds someone of a gigantic insect, and it's
suppose to be a household companion/housekeeper, people might reject having it
around the house. That's a good reason to have bipedal robots.

But on the other hand, if you get close, but not exactly with bipedal robots,
people might get even more freaked out with the uncanny valley.

~~~
carpal
Good point.

Personally, I'd love to have a robotic centaur helping me around the house.

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drm237
He's alright but dexter can do it while wearing some sweet shoes:
<http://www.anybots.com/videos.html#walking_080302_title>

------
nose
DARPA was the original ycombinator!

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anupamkapoor
for a long time it seemed like two guys with their head+torso stuck in a funny
box. but truly, wow !

edit: it seems very close to AT-ST from star-wars though.

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sabat
Skynet became self-aware at 2:14am EDT March 28, 2008.

~~~
sabat
Aw, c'mon. I can't believe people voted me down for this one. No one else
thought the 'bot seemed eerily self-aware?

~~~
pchristensen
I thought the way its legs moved and the way it stumbled and rebalanced were
extremely lifelike. I was wondering how they control it - is it as simple as a
remote joystick? Just point in the direction and it figures out how to get
there?

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ctingom
Wow! Amazing.

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tim2
Hah, it slipping on that ice is hilarious.

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noelchurchill
The jump is the best are you kidding me?! It's like Jordan haha

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jbrun
That is crazy. It is almost like a real dog - which are free.

The real future is with genetically engineered dogs, horses... to run faster,
cary heavy loads etc. We have already done it through selective breeding and
soon we will be able to program DNA (see Craig Venter, Dawkins...).

These robots are so mechanically complex that they will ultimately fail.
Nature (evolution) is the greatest designer. What complex robots have hit the
mass market? None, because they are just too many moving parts.

Animals can even reproduce!

~~~
coffeeaddicted
You just did see a video of one of the most advanced prototypes(!) of a robot
and you think it will fail because such things are not yet seen in mass
market? Somehow that made me smile :)

~~~
jbrun
How many planes have you seen in people's driveways? The mass market is not a
sign of success, all products have to start somewhere.

These robots will remain the realm of military and rescue missions because
they have so many damn moving parts. Quality control is what drives up prices
and quality control is exponentially linked to moving parts. So my argument is
more along the lines of:

"This robot is technologically amazing and promising, but is built upon a
foundation of complexity which inexorably leads to limitations".

~~~
coffeeaddicted
I don't think the reason you don't see planes in people's driveways is because
of their complexity. Nearly all consumer products are increasing their
complexity each year and there's no reason to think that this trends stops.
Just take a look at any modern car and compare it with an old one. If people
want such robots enough those robots will be produced for the mass market.

And the first application which did spring to my mind immediately was
transport. There are so many situations where an automated transport, which
does not depend on wheels or rails, would be useful that I can see a huge
market for this.

The first mass market might be in the industry. But once prices fall there are
also lots of possibilities for this to reach the consumer market. Certainly
normal people also can have uses for such transports. Be it as intelligent
luggage, as a tool for the garden (replacing the wheelbarrow) or simply as a
very cool toy for the kids (just think of riding those things!).

This is a completely new way of automating transports and so I expect it to
have an extremely large impact in the following years.

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rokhayakebe
i think we are in deep shit. there is no way that such robots paired with
artificial intelligence do not take over the world. we are a few years away
from it. humans will self destruct not by killing each other, but by creating
robots that will be out of control.

~~~
comatose_kid
Don't forget the sharks that shoot lasers from their eyes.

Or the dogs with the bees in their mouths, and when they bark, they shoot bees
at you.

~~~
WilliamLP
That's nothing compared to dogs that can be trained to sick specific parts of
the human male body!

