Boston Dynamics
8 HN mentions · mentioned in 6 months, 2020–2026
2:55 · 42M views · Dec 29, 2020
Boston Dynamics' New Year video shows its Atlas, Spot and Handle robots dancing to 'Do You Love Me?'. It showcases the company's progress in legged dynamic balance.
Used as a benchmark for robot agility, with debate over how much was choreographed or real-time.
8 comments from Hacker News
So they run 5 different experiments to test the hypothesis, and they were nothing like what I imagined. For example, in one study, they divide participants into two groups, have one group watch this video (that highlights the high socio-emotional capabilities of a robot), while the other watches [LINK] (that highlights the low socio-emotional capabilities of a robot) They are then asked if they agree or disagree with a (presumably hypothetical?) company's proposal to reduce employees' welfare, such as replacing a meal with a shake. Two groups showed a different preference. This makes me think about that old question of whether you thank LLM or not. That is treating LLMs more like humans, so if what this paper found holds, maybe that'd nudge our brain subtly toward dehumanizing other real humans!? That's so counter intuitive...
Unfair reading bordering with propaganda. On one hand Boston Dynamics showed similar skill robot well before this demo, only without coreography, which is were most of the wow effect comes from here. [LINK] Heck check were they were 5 years ago this video Things is american research is financed by outcome potential not for grandstanding, and free standing robot that can only do recorded coreography aren't that useful outside factory floors, and factory floors can use ceiling rails or wheels to better effect. So yeah video is suler cool, but there isn't much to it beyond that to read in terms of capabilities. You seem just to be projecting what the truth you want to be on top of a funny dance.
Boston Dynamics | Multiple Software Roles | Boston, Bay Area, and remote for some roles| Full-Time | [LINK] Boston Dynamics is a leading developer of mobile robots. We're pushing the boundaries of what robots can do, including coordinated dancing - this video . We're focused on making our robots useful in the real world, such as for safe decommissioning of Chernobyl - [LINK] . We are hiring for many roles - [LINK] Software oriented roles include Full-Stack and Frontend Engineers, Controls and Computer Vision Engineers, SQA Manager, and SWE roles for people with networking and systems experience. Apply at [LINK]
The skepticism is warranted for any bleeding edge technology. I wonder if there's another version of a Turing test when a technology can be considered sufficiently advanced when it's indistinguishable from a fake version you've seen in sci-fi. E.g, the Boston Dynamics' dancing robot video ( this video ) still looks fake to me because it's at the level that I would expect to see from Hollywood CGI rather than a real tech demo. If I saw the video anywhere else but on the BD page, I would have enjoyed it and forgotten about it since it's an average CGI video.
Looks like Atlas may have had an accident during filming, there's a hydraulic fluid stain on the floor: this video And it must also be said that these are preprogrammed maneuvers on a closed course...