
'Spot': A Robot That Could Help Doctors Remotely Treat Covid-19 Patients - bottle2
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/24/844770815/meet-spot-the-robot-that-could-help-doctors-remotely-treat-covid-19-patients
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jawns
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how Spot eliminates the potential
for virus transmission, especially if it's performing up-close checking of
vitals on multiple patients.

Granted, Spot can't contract or respirate COVID-19, so it doesn't need a mask
or a gown, but unless it's taking a rubbing alcohol bath between each patient
visit, couldn't the virus still be transmitted via surface contact?

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jsight
I'm assuming that they can use some relatively harsh chemicals on the robot
that wouldn't necessarily be safe for a person. And obviously not being able
to respirate the illness is a significant improvement.

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jansan
I do not understand the purpose of this. Can't the patients simply make a
video call with their smartphones?

I mean, if spot had a small barrel with brandy around his neck, just like the
St. Bernhard dogs allegedly did, now that would be something...

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ragebol
Something simpler can work just as well or much easier and this holds for many
many problems or tasks. To do dishes, we do not have robot arms holding a
brush but dishwashers. Think of a Roomba vs. robot with a sweeper etc. Instead
of a robot stocking shelves in a super market, just have home delivery and cut
out the shelves entirely. Cooking robots vs. microwave meals.

The issue with all of the above is that each of those can only do 1 task (and
do it well). Humans can do multiple things well while reusing the same bits
for multiple tasks. A mopping and a vacuum robot are very much alike and share
a huge portion of the software and hardware. <strike>Robots</strike> Tools
like a Roomba need to be cheap enough to warrant their cost for a task you
only need a X times a week/day/moth/year. So, a Roomba is has to be cheap
enough. Spot (and other robots) are more expensive but also more versatile and
should be capable of doing more tasks.

But, finally, robots bringing beer, yes, the holy grail of robotics!

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hprotagonist
This is your monthly reminder that Boston Dynamics is exceptionally good at
product demos.

It remains much less clear that they’re any good at anything _else_.

Also, Spot looks like a Houndeye to me, so i keep waiting for it to make
“wheeeennnnnnn BAM” noises.

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me_me_me
> It remains much less clear that they’re any good at anything else.

They are also exceptionally good at building impressive robots.

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hprotagonist
Not to be too blunt here, but: besides very impressive numbers of youtube
views, what have those robots accomplished, in a “we have deployed X thousand
of these in the following Y situations” sense, since 2006?

I’m (way more than) fine with blue sky work, and BD deserves credit for not
building weapons, but at the same time there’s an impedance mismatch here.

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JackFaker
If you're interested Adam Savage was allowed to use a 'Spot' robot for several
months and shares some observations and information on actual usage on his
youtube channel.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-PdPtqw78k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-PdPtqw78k)

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hprotagonist
[https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/24/boston-dynamics-puts-
its-r...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/24/boston-dynamics-puts-its-robotic-
quadruped-spot-up-for-sale/)

reading between the lines, as of Q4 last year they're still in _extremely_
early in any meaningful deployment. Lease-based alpha access to select
customers, "hey we don't have to send a 12-man team out every month anymore",
and carefully PRd information is certainly some kind of progress, but it's not
anything like normal use.

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JackFaker
Definitely not normal use, probably something akin to controlled alpha or beta
testing. The only recent article a saw about the fall 2019 trials/leases was
this article that didn't provide any meaningful details on usage.

[https://www.officer.com/command-
hq/technology/article/211286...](https://www.officer.com/command-
hq/technology/article/21128615/electronic-law-enforcement-and-robotic-
equipment)

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bitwize
If I saw this escapee from a Metal Gear game coming in to check up on me, my
first instinct would be to run, or perhaps hide under the nearest cardboard
box of sufficient size.

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spookybones
Also makes me think of Half Life

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neuronexmachina
I wonder if it would make sense to use the telepresence bots from Double
Robotics for something like this. It seems to have similar capabilities (I'm
assuming there aren't many stairs on the hospital floor) and costs an order of
magnitude less:
[https://www.doublerobotics.com/](https://www.doublerobotics.com/)

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earthtourist
I wonder how it is cleaned. Parts of it look like they might be hard to clean
effectively. Is it water resistant and capable of being (safely) sprayed down
with a disinfectant?

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317070
Why not have wheels?

What is it that makes spot better at telepresence, telemedicine, remote vital
inspection, internal delivery or disinfecting hospital rooms than, say, a
roomba platform?

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bottle2
The main picture seems like something out of a science fiction nightmare

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empath75
We've been living in a science fiction nightmare since 2016, I think.

