
Boston Dynamics has a new creepy dog-like robot called SpotMini - elsewhen
https://qz.com/1128469/softbanks-boston-dynamics-has-a-new-creepy-dog-like-robot-called-spotmini/
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Rainymood
Why is this considered "creepy"? For all I care this is super awesome. Of
course there are military applications but there are also a lot of non-
military applications (i.e. pallative care for elderly!)

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trophycase
Because people know that ultimately this will be used for military/policing
applications and aren't excited for an inhuman future where AI and robots
dispense "justice" and keep "peace"

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mtaksrud
Seriously? Isn’t that a very dystopian view of the future?

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stuaxo
Yes, but makes sense - Boston Dynamics have funding from the US military and
military tech seems to end up in the hands of police forces.

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nickm12
Ugh. This article is just click-bait copy with with a link to a Youtube video
and no original reporting. Just link the video directly rather than sending
traffic to junk like this.

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l1n
[https://youtu.be/kgaO45SyaO4](https://youtu.be/kgaO45SyaO4) for those
interested

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tomcam
Google made a mistake. Those droids are amazing.

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aalleavitch
Yeah, you want to be in control of the company making the horrifying robots.

If you aren't controlling them, somebody else is.

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alex_duf
If my interpretation of the sound is correct, this is running on battery, not
on an internal combustion engine.

I may be mistaken but that's the first time I hear about Boston Dynamics
switching to battery operated robots.

That's a big step I think!

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digi_owl
Earlier models were supposed to be robotic mules for military use.

This one seems to be aimed at domestic "helper dog" tasks.

Thus much like a roomba they will have a charging station sitting in a corner
somewhere.

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quantisan
direct link to video
[https://youtu.be/kgaO45SyaO4](https://youtu.be/kgaO45SyaO4)

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thisisit
> The sale came about in part because of the reputation Boston Dynamics had
> developed for making robots that were too creepy for the general public.

Is this really true? Because this sounds like a stupid reason, even _in part_
, to make a sale.

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vosper
I thought it was less about "creepy" and more about the military aspect. It's
hard to "don't be evil" when you have a subsidiary building what people were
describing (hyperbolically) as some kind of precursor to the Terminator. If
they put some big anime eyes and a cute tail on the new one, rather than an
empty face place, it'd probably go down just fine.

Edit: Boston Dynamics also didn't help themselves with the "dog kicking"
video. It (sort of) looks like a dog, and people were kicking it (well, not
really, they were pushing it with their feet to show it good it was at
balance). Obviously it's just a machine, but a lot of people saw some dudes
kicking a dog.

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molmalo
There was also a big internal fight because Google thought the future robots
should use wheels, but the engineers at Boston dynamics wanted to keep betting
on legs.

An hybrid was made that was awesome [1], but I think that in the end, both
companies had a different vision for what they wanted to build.

[1]

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kurthr
I think you mean this one... Handle Robot.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP_NCB3KkiY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP_NCB3KkiY)

It is impressive, especially the jumps, lifts, and spins.

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molmalo
Ups, yeah, I forgot to paste the link, Thanks!

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fourfaces
What would it cost them to attach a friendly dog head and a wagging tail on
this headless monster? It would make it more appealing to the public and
improve PR. Imagine thousands of these things walking up and down the
sidewalks of NYC. They would scare the crap out of everybody.

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Hextinium
The problem with that is that you would get further into the uncanny valley,
it would actually make the problem worse before BD gets effective enough to
make it out of the uncanny valley.

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digi_owl
Sony's Aibo suggests otherwise.

The trick is to aim for stylistic rather than photorealistic.

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kumarvvr
It's incredibly scary to see this technology in current political and media
climate of extensive and easily created distractions, smokescreens and
outright lies.

Some technology can wait till we humans can handle it.

It might be difficult to copy nuclear bombs, but this will be easy to
replicate and unleash upon the world.

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Geee
This seems like they are going to sell it? I certainly hope so.

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bmcusick
Tell me that doesn't look like the Terminator version of the Demidog from
Stranger Things 2

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stewbrew
Do they yet have a use case for these things that doesn't involve military?

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tzakrajs
Maybe they could be used for hikes and climbs where you could put all of your
camp gear on it and have it follow behind.

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stewbrew
How do would you recharge the batteries?

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red75prime
Ethanol power generator and a couple of vodka bottles maybe?

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unixhero
Stop it Boston Dynamics. You're the scariest of them all.

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bekman
Do they have commercially available products or just R&D?

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vorotato
How DARE you call spotmini creepy!!

