They still have the hockey stick around as a reminder to Atlas.
Cool tech, but what’s the intended use case for the end product? Or is there no use case until it’s as good as a human?
At the moment it still looks like a technology demonstrator, but with what we saw in this video there are a small percentage of jobs it could likely do today replacing human workers.
My guess is that the task we saw it doing is actually a human job today. The objects being moved from rack to rack were plastic engine covers. The racks are labeled with “Engine covers”. That is WAY too specific to be random. My guess is that they worked/are working with an automotive assembly company to identify tasks that humans do today that a robot could do tomorrow. The auto company likely provided the engine cover parts as well as the racks and described the parameters for the job.
Even if you look at the Boston Dynamics robot and say that a human could do that faster/cheaper/better, consider that the robot works 24/7 with no sick days, vacations, or family emergencies. From a purely business perspective, the robot could be a game-changer for the better. From a societal view, this will have serious negative consequences to the people that our society will need to evolve to change for the better.
That’s the rub, isn’t it? From a society view, having manual labor all done by robots is also a positive game changer, as it protects human health with no loss in standard of living, but because we will just lay people off with no support, it will instead plunge our society into despair.
The automation tax that gates/etc proposed to fund UBI/social support networks is making more and more sense.
The automation tax that gates/etc proposed to fund UBI/social support networks is making more and more sense.
I’m all for UBI, but the automation tax is a quagmire.
In this theoretical new tax, tell me what qualifies to be taxed?
- An Atlas autonomous robot? Sure, absolutely. How about instead a hydraulic arm that is controlled by a human? Previously there were 4 humans that moved the widget from A to B, but now they have 1 human operating a joystick for a net loss of 3 jobs. Is that taxed?
- How about an Excel macro? Prior to the macro, there was one person filling in the spreadsheet the entire 8 hour workday. Now that person was replaced with an Excel macro that runs in 5 minutes with one click. That is automation too right? What would you tax? The cost of the person replaced?
- Who pays the tax? A company that buys an Atlas robot after the law is passed? Absolutely. How about a company that bought Atlas robots 24 hours before the law passed? How about the company that bought them a year before the law passed? Now apply the Excel macro automation. Excel macros have around since the 1990s. Are you going to go back to the first macro run and tax every company retroactively? How about if the macro only does part of the work?
Automation tax is a nice idea but a nightmare to try to make in policy. Additionally, it will have a stifling effect on any business efficiency efforts after it exists.
If the tax is based upon workers losing their jobs to automation, it will have a massive knock on effect limiting new hires. A company would be very leery of hiring a worker if they could be accused (and taxed) of automation replacement when that worker is let go.
The point with factory work is that you don’t need half of what this robot can do if you change the plan of the factory a bit.
- Flat floors? Just use wheels instead of legs.
- Short distance to cover? Drop the entire torso and head and just be an arm with a camera.
So no I don’t think the idea here is for standard factory work.
The point with factory work is that you don’t need half of what this robot can do if you change the plan of the factory a bit.
So no I don’t think the idea here is for standard factory work.
You’re changing the problem that is being solved. The CURRENT work process is to use a human with all the benefits and detriments of a human. The idea would be to drop one of these Atlas robots in without changing the work or work environment. Perhaps there is a more efficient human doing the work from 8am-5pm and only some work needed from 5pm-8am. An Atlas robot would be perfect use case here. You don’t have to redesign the work or the environment for a human or robot to switch out to do the same work.
What you’re describing is changing the nature of the task or the environment to optimize for a robot.
- Flat floors? Just use wheels instead of legs.
- Short distance to cover? Drop the entire torso and head and just be an arm with a camera.
Boston Dynamics already has that robot. Its called Handle:
As you can see, its a wheeled robot with an arm, but this robot couldn’t do the task that the Atlas robot can in the video because it doesn’t have the fine motor control or fingers to grasp the engine covers, nor does Handle have the ability to deal with those soft pliable racks where Atlas is placing the covers.
Yep, it’s no more than a stress test for a robot to keep it’s balance in motion, coupled with some partnership and a nice PR showcase of what it can do in a humanized scenario that we meatbags can relate to.
Moving stuff in a predictable fashion is easily done with forklift\suction cup robots on rails that can ride floors and climb shelves while being powered from the line 100% of time. Iirc Boston Dynamics did such robots too. Making robots carry stuff around on legs sounds like a c/crazyideas material.
What they can do then though is use this amount of R&D to build a robot that does need all of that. From automatic surgery machines to rescue scouts and, yes, killbots. Both rough terrain and sensitive tasks need a self-regulating system to orchestrate the motion in all these motors right.
They said the same about robots in the 80s, particularly automotive industry robots. They were going to turn society on it’s ear and it was a non-stop news item for some time.
In 1970 there were 1.5 million UAW auto workers. Today there are 400k. source Yes, UAW membership isn’t the only type of auto worker, yes there are other factors that cause auto decline besides robots. However, I challenge you to point to a modern large scale automotive manufacturing factory that doesn’t use robots.
To add your last paragraph - today’s robot may be worse but next year’s robot might not be. And with how far Boston Dynamics (and others) have come in such a short time, it’s not hard to imagine that future getting here soon.
Corporations have shown time and time again they fire people by the thousands as soon as it’s financially viable and since this tech will be implemented quickly across the industry, those ex-employees won’t be able to find work. Governments need to start taking UBI seriously if they don’t want to massive civil unrest.
As much as I cringe at the “come and take it” crowd, a lot of them work these at-risk jobs. They will take their anger at their ex-employee and aim it at the government.
They’re trying to improve them to a point where they can do stuff good. At this point I doubt its much good for anything other than demos and the most basic of tasks
Yeah, but I just don’t see a use case for a humanoid robot, a standard robot arm could do the job in the video. Robots are better when designed for specific jobs.
Current robots are better when designed for a specific job, but that means only corps with enough scale can afford robots
What about much smaller companies that can’t afford to design and build a robot for a specific task? There are thousands of these companies, doing things at smaller scale so not able to automate. However a robot with similar capabilities to a human, that could be trained like a human, and doesn’t cost like an industrial robot, can fill in for a human at all of these companies
Hazardous environments, dark factories, engine rooms in ships when the temperature is 60 degrees C and 180 decibels.
Fun fact: decibels are exponential; A 180 db sound would be the loudest thing ever recorded (the krakatoa volcano was 172) and after 194 db it ceases to be sound and becomes a shockwave.
Stuff like this is probably mostly tech demo, but there are instances where it could make jobs safer (hot work in locations with corrosive or explosive gases nearby, such as at a chemical plant, underwater welding site, responding to gas leaks, etc.
Watch the USCSB channel on YouTube for good examples of dangerous jobs, such as putting out uncontrolled chemical fires, or performing hot work during the most dangerous times at chemical plants, when stuff is shut down for maintenance and might still be leaking catalysts. Robots could save lives.
They’re still looking for a purpose for Atlas iirc. While they have Stretch as a loading/unloading robot and Spot as a patrolling/surveying robot, Atlas has been the robot they’re developing for the longest time yet with a specific purpose. I’m assuming they’ll still use Atlas as a researching platform so they can transfer what they learn to making a more refined robot with specific purpose, while at the same time refining it to be as good as a bipedal robot can be.
