Boston Dynamics' new electric Atlas robot is swiveling nightmare fuel(theverge.com)
theverge.com
Boston Dynamics' new electric Atlas robot is swiveling nightmare fuel
https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/17/24133145/boston-dynamics-resurrects-atlas-humanoid-robot-electric-new
35 comments
I think it's still the same "uncanny valley" phenomenon: because the body looks more like a human, we are more creeped when we discover how it moves its joints because we were expecting something more human. We wouldn't be creeped by a car/robot moving its wheels in weird directions, but we are with a humanoid robot moving its legs that way.
In particular, the sections of the demo video where it does something anatomically impossible for humans -- rotating legs in the hip joints, rotating its torso to switch front and back -- are absolutely uncanny valley stuff.
It looks like its possessed.
Something straight out of Exorcist.
Something straight out of Exorcist.
The head at least needs to be changed and made to look more friendly, or at least not like an emotionless alien eyeing you up for paperclip conversion.
It's a bit odd to follow the human form factor (I get the logic - for a human-designed world), but then not at least also give it a human-looking head, or maybe better a dumb/cute looking head.
It's a bit odd to follow the human form factor (I get the logic - for a human-designed world), but then not at least also give it a human-looking head, or maybe better a dumb/cute looking head.
Wouldn't a more friendly looking face push us further into the uncanny valley and make it more creepy, not less?
I wouldn't have thought so, but it's hard to predict how people are going to viscerally react!
I wouldn't have anticipated people finding the rotation/double-jointedness creepy, but it does seem to be a fairly widespread reaction.
I wouldn't have anticipated people finding the rotation/double-jointedness creepy, but it does seem to be a fairly widespread reaction.
It's still firmly within the uncanny valley. That effect doesn't only apply to facial features - in this case it applies to the humanoid shape of the robot, which carries its own set of instinct-driven expectations. For example, some people think owls are creepy because of how far around they can turn their heads, even though they aren't even humanoid. But you see the same effect in horror movies, spinning heads or bodies that move in unexpected ways.
It's creepy because it looks human enough but doesn't move like a human. We pick up on the head, torso, arms, and legs and subconsciously expect it to move as a human would but it does not- or at least in the teaser it didn't. Since it did something you didn't expect it could be dangerous so you should be careful.
The faceless head is somewhat monstrous as well. I can almost see the ring going red just before the thing decides to slaughter the entire room.
Don't worry, you'll barely see the actual slaughterbots coming: https://youtube.com/watch?v=O-2tpwW0kmU&pp=ygUNc2xhdWdodGVyY...
It's exactly the uncanny valley effect of being human-like. Consider sci-fi utility robots like this, which most people don't find "creepy" (maybe intimidating, but that's different):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VkOlvXTvLI
Meanwhile humanoids are the stuff of actual horror movies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c7XccFwJrQ
I'd predict that a crab-like or dog-like robot would be better accepted for home robotics for this reason. We will not want them to look like us.
The same is true for aliens. A giant bug, octopus, or quadruped is far less scary than something vaguely humanoid. Sci-fi horror aliens like the xenomorph or the "greys" hit the uncanny valley in various ways.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VkOlvXTvLI
Meanwhile humanoids are the stuff of actual horror movies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c7XccFwJrQ
I'd predict that a crab-like or dog-like robot would be better accepted for home robotics for this reason. We will not want them to look like us.
The same is true for aliens. A giant bug, octopus, or quadruped is far less scary than something vaguely humanoid. Sci-fi horror aliens like the xenomorph or the "greys" hit the uncanny valley in various ways.
I found the dog prototypes disturbing and frightening because they moved in ways that no human has ever experienced in real life. They were similar to what the early Stable Diffusion models produced, the mangled limbs and fingers. Well, scary has its uses, like on the battlefield.
This robot looks good. It moves like a robot, it doesn't try to be human, and that's good.
This robot looks good. It moves like a robot, it doesn't try to be human, and that's good.
I quite like it.
There was going to be an uncanny valley regardless, and BD clearly decided to lean into it.
There was going to be an uncanny valley regardless, and BD clearly decided to lean into it.
There's a practical aspect to it, which I assume was intentional given the engineering challenge of being able to fully rotate torso like that, etc.
Most of these humanoid robots (e.g. TeslaBot in it's current state) walk slowly, which limits productivity. It wouldn't matter if the job was standing at an assembly station, but anything with legs is obviously targetting more general use cases such as "gofer" - fetching parts from bins, etc.
The benefit of electro-Atlas (they should have a naming competition!) is that it can essentially move or look in any direction, which means it has to walk/turn much less to get into a preferred orientation or move to a target location. It's a bit like the early "micromouse" competition entrants where they went from the initial car-like designs to omnidirectional ones (using omnidirectional wheels) so that they could change direction without needing to turn - just scoot off at 90 degrees to previous direction.
Most of these humanoid robots (e.g. TeslaBot in it's current state) walk slowly, which limits productivity. It wouldn't matter if the job was standing at an assembly station, but anything with legs is obviously targetting more general use cases such as "gofer" - fetching parts from bins, etc.
The benefit of electro-Atlas (they should have a naming competition!) is that it can essentially move or look in any direction, which means it has to walk/turn much less to get into a preferred orientation or move to a target location. It's a bit like the early "micromouse" competition entrants where they went from the initial car-like designs to omnidirectional ones (using omnidirectional wheels) so that they could change direction without needing to turn - just scoot off at 90 degrees to previous direction.
I commented to this effect on a previous post: I find that the old Atlas leaned much more into the uncanny valley because it was sort of human-like in its movement. This one has some horror movie robot vibes going, but not the uncanny valley effect (not for me anyway).
I wonder if it has to do with the fact that they so front-and-center showcased the very un-human-like capabilities, whereas the other one almost seemed to try to just be an exceptionally athletic human.
They are just showing off the new articulation capabilities.
Main discussion is here:
"An electric new era for Atlas"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40064105
402 points | 397 comments
"An electric new era for Atlas"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40064105
402 points | 397 comments
Recovering from supine position is a known tough problem in bipedal robots. It makes sense that they would want to show off this capability.
Company secrets, I suppose, but I wish there was more info on the engineering of it. Custom motors? What do they look like? (I see a lot of ventilation suggesting heat.) Are there anything like tendons (springs I suppose) so that the motors are being assisted to a degree in lifting the mass of itself?
Love to see a dissection so to speak.
Love to see a dissection so to speak.
Boston Dynamics is notoriously secretive.
But unlike with hydraulics, where Boston Dynamics have developed their own valves and pumps and organically shaped 3D printed in titanium manifolds, there is only so much that one can do differently from others with the electro-mechanical actuators and motor controllers.
Everybody is using the same brushless motors with one of a few known types of gearboxes.These technologies are so well developed that one usually has no choice but to source the components from the experts in their respective domains.
For now, the closest one can do to looking inside of the new Atlas, is to look at other modern robots. For example, here is what is inside of the Agility Robotics' bipedal robot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzIX2KGqpzI
And here is a teardown of a joint from a very popular Universal Robots' arm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oje2ucwe3vI
Other than that, one can read Boston Dynamics' patents covering some of the design choices for their older robots, including for the electric quadrupeds: https://patents.google.com/?assignee=Boston+Dynamics
But unlike with hydraulics, where Boston Dynamics have developed their own valves and pumps and organically shaped 3D printed in titanium manifolds, there is only so much that one can do differently from others with the electro-mechanical actuators and motor controllers.
Everybody is using the same brushless motors with one of a few known types of gearboxes.These technologies are so well developed that one usually has no choice but to source the components from the experts in their respective domains.
For now, the closest one can do to looking inside of the new Atlas, is to look at other modern robots. For example, here is what is inside of the Agility Robotics' bipedal robot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzIX2KGqpzI
And here is a teardown of a joint from a very popular Universal Robots' arm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oje2ucwe3vI
Other than that, one can read Boston Dynamics' patents covering some of the design choices for their older robots, including for the electric quadrupeds: https://patents.google.com/?assignee=Boston+Dynamics
> The design itself is also a little more humanoid. Similar to bipedal robots like Tesla’s Optimus, the new Atlas now has longer limbs, a straighter back, and a distinct “head” that can swivel around as needed.
Must suck to always have your cutting edge tech compared with one of Elon's toys.
Must suck to always have your cutting edge tech compared with one of Elon's toys.
This is giving me major Geth from Mass Effect vibes.
Given the massive impact that AI has had on the cultural conversation, I wonder how far away we are from a similar conversation about robots.
Given the massive impact that AI has had on the cultural conversation, I wonder how far away we are from a similar conversation about robots.
[dupe]
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40064105
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40064105
[deleted]
Yeah, the getting up routine was terrifying. Like something out of a horror movie mixed with the Terminator.
I think it would do us some good to worry as much about the workforce implications of these tools at least as much as we worry about things like AGI/Skynet.
Four years ago UBI was being widely discussed. Now as we get closer to needing it, discussion has all but disappeared.
IMO, the biggest challenge going forward is not technological, but instead it's convincing powerful, very dogmatic individuals, that what is essentially redistribution of wealth is a necessary thing.
Four years ago UBI was being widely discussed. Now as we get closer to needing it, discussion has all but disappeared.
IMO, the biggest challenge going forward is not technological, but instead it's convincing powerful, very dogmatic individuals, that what is essentially redistribution of wealth is a necessary thing.
> IMO, the biggest challenge going forward is not technological, but instead it's convincing powerful, very dogmatic individuals, that what is essentially redistribution of wealth is a necessary thing.
Funny, I was going to reply about UBI being implemented with something like CBDC, that could be controlled by it's issuer and how it would be less equitable than obtaining money from labor. I was a die-hard Yang2020 person, so I'm very much in favor of UBI, but the implementation is extremely perilous because human evil exists.
Maybe we should just make Robot Unions.
Funny, I was going to reply about UBI being implemented with something like CBDC, that could be controlled by it's issuer and how it would be less equitable than obtaining money from labor. I was a die-hard Yang2020 person, so I'm very much in favor of UBI, but the implementation is extremely perilous because human evil exists.
Maybe we should just make Robot Unions.
It truly blew my mind that UBI took off like it did back then. It's literal socialism with a different name.
The whole thing is going to be a lot to wrap our collective heads around. It will not be an easy path. I mean, my family escaped communism. I felt dirty as heck writing "redistribution of wealth" in my previous comment.
The funny thing here is that we are at a period in the history of capitalism where it has succeeded so wildly, that it's about to make it's core societal tenants obsolete.
The whole thing is going to be a lot to wrap our collective heads around. It will not be an easy path. I mean, my family escaped communism. I felt dirty as heck writing "redistribution of wealth" in my previous comment.
The funny thing here is that we are at a period in the history of capitalism where it has succeeded so wildly, that it's about to make it's core societal tenants obsolete.
I wonder if, instead of UBI, it would make more sense to give everyone a small set of robot servants. Say, 6 per person.
That's interesting, but might lead to even more population decline in the long term. But, that might not be that bad actually. I mean 1B on earth in 200 years might be perfectly fine.
Along similar lines, I wondered about generative AI and how legally, it's not able to create copyrightable work. I really like that, it makes humans necessary for the creation intellectual property. Maybe in the future, each child born gets some allocation of AI agents when they turn 18, and the fruits of the labor of those agents would be assigned to that adult?
Along similar lines, I wondered about generative AI and how legally, it's not able to create copyrightable work. I really like that, it makes humans necessary for the creation intellectual property. Maybe in the future, each child born gets some allocation of AI agents when they turn 18, and the fruits of the labor of those agents would be assigned to that adult?
The robot set could help people in some practical aspects that money can solve too, but in a more complicated way.
If you suffer from arthritis and need something from the topmost shelf, you can theoretically find paid help, but it takes some time to arrange and wait for, and most people respond by coping somehow (e.g. limiting their use of furniture to the subset easily reached).
A robot could do it for you on demand.
That said, maybe people would stop walking altogether, and simply let themselves being carried around their own house by robots. All such conveniences can turn to evil.
If you suffer from arthritis and need something from the topmost shelf, you can theoretically find paid help, but it takes some time to arrange and wait for, and most people respond by coping somehow (e.g. limiting their use of furniture to the subset easily reached).
A robot could do it for you on demand.
That said, maybe people would stop walking altogether, and simply let themselves being carried around their own house by robots. All such conveniences can turn to evil.
I believe the technical term is 'foreshadowing'.
I commented to my partner that it feels like these things will be hunting us down soon. He commented that drones are already hunting people down on the battlefield today. Touché.
Historically what people have found creepy about robots is when they become too human-like, especially facially - the "uncanny valley" where the face is so close to human that the slight differences give the feeling that something is wrong - like a dead body brought to life, perhaps.
What's unexpected about people feeling creeped out by this new son-of-Atlas is that it seems to be because of how un-human it is (opposite of uncanny valley!) in it's ability to rotate its head and torso and perform these double-jointed types of maneuver. Maybe in a factory setting this doesn't matter, but it's relevant in terms of robots used in other settings like hospitals. Japan seem to have the right idea in terms of making robots slightly smaller than humans and with friendly faces so that they seem non-intimidating.