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Robo-Rover Fights Back.

STUDY HARD ENOUGH, kids, and maybe one day you’ll grow up to be a professional robot fighter.

A few years ago, Boston Dynamics set the standard for the field by having people wielding hockey sticks try to keep Spot the quadrupedal robot from opening a door. Previously, in 2015, the far-out federal research agency Darpa hosted a challenge in which it forced clumsy humanoid robots to embarrass themselves on an obstacle course way outside the machines’ league. (I once asked you, dear readers, to stop laughing at them, but have since changed my mind.) And now, behold: The makers of the Jueying robot dog have taught it a fascinating way to fend off a human antagonizer who kicks it over or pushes it with a stick.

A team of researchers from China’s Zhejiang University—where the Jueying’s hardware was also developed—and the University of Edinburgh didn’t teach the Jueying how to recover after an assault, so much as they let the robot figure it out. It’s a dramatic departure from how a hardware developer like Boston Dynamics goes about teaching a robot how to move, using decades of human experience to hard code, line by line, the way a robot is supposed to react to stimuli like, um, a person’s foot.

In traditional methods of training robots, you’d have to meticulously code all of those specialized behaviors. For instance, how should the actuators—motors that move a robot’s limbs—coordinate to make the machine run like a midfielder? “The reality is that if you want to send a robot into the wild to do a wide range of different tasks and missions, you need different skills, right?” says University of Edinburgh roboticist Zhibin Li, corresponding author on a recent paper in the journal Science Robotics describing the system. ...

https://www.wired.com/story/watch-a-robot-dog-learn-how-to-deftly-fend-off-a-human/
 
"I'm not self-aware yet"

Oh I can't wait for the day that the self-awareness comes about. The sudden realisation that she (it) is just a collection of bits that have been assembled into an approximately human-shaped form, and given the ability to process data from the surroundings, with the extreme likelihood being that someday soon a mechanical and technological redundancy will overtake this (what will then be) out-of-date version, and the plug will be pulled.
 
I like my robots more mechanical.

She looks like her ambition is to become a sexbot.
 
Boston Dynamic's robots dancing
Do You Love Me? - YouTube

The practical payoffs from a cool stunt ...

That 3 minute video was the result of 1.5 years of R&D, innovation, and upgrades necessary to achieve the impressive dancing. The fun objective they set out to accomplish was the motivation for considerable product improvements and refinements.
Behind those dancing robots, scientists had to bust a move

... The results? Almost a year and half of choreography, simulation, programming and upgrades that were capped by two days of filming to produce a video running at less than 3 minutes. ...

Boston Dynamics founder and chairperson Marc Raibert says what the robot maker learned was far more valuable.

“It turned out that we needed to upgrade the robot in the middle of development in order for it to be strong enough and to have enough energy to do the whole performance without stopping. So that was a real benefit to the design,” Raibert says. ...

The difficult challenge of teaching robots to dance also pushed Boston Dynamics engineers to develop better motion-programming tools that let robots reconcile balance, bouncing and doing a performance simultaneously.

“So we went from having very crude tools for doing that to having very effective rapid-generation tools so that by the time we were done, we could generate new dance steps very quickly and integrate them into the performance,” Raibert says. ...

https://apnews.com/article/choreogr...assachusetts-d684559324a385209c0da353a76363bc
 
When I first saw Boston Dynamic's video, I thought it must be CGI, but clearly it isn't. Truly amazing what they have achieved, the costs must be beyond counting.
 
I'm wondering when someone's going to build one that can roll a joint. I know I'm being a bit flippant on the surface but at the same time, rolling a joint well takes great dexterity (from back when I rolled joints) .. the next challenge would be for a robot successfully rolling a joint in the wind tunnel that is the building at the top of Glastonbury Tor .. something I was once taught how to do that is insanely difficult and involves a lot of pinning the joint being built inside the heavy folds of denim jeans and other whatnot tricks. Only then, when you can build a joint without any of it blowing away inside a wind tunnel are you a Jedi joint roller.
 
I'm wondering when someone's going to build one that can roll a joint. I know I'm being a bit flippant on the surface but at the same time, rolling a joint well takes great dexterity (from back when I rolled joints) .. the next challenge would be for a robot successfully rolling a joint in the wind tunnel that is the building at the top of Glastonbury Tor .. something I was once taught how to do that is insanely difficult and involves a lot of pinning the joint being built inside the heavy folds of denim jeans and other whatnot tricks. Only then, when you can build a joint without any of it blowing away inside a wind tunnel are you a Jedi joint roller.

You are a loss to the scientific community.
 
When one door closes, another one opens.
Robot dexterity maintenance advancement with a humour tweak .. I haven't got any kids but if I did I'd be stoked to see a grandaughter moaning about grownups with a robot kid agreeing with her one day. Boston Dynamics have already got them dancing so lets get them sentient so they can both be involved in the robots rights movement that will probably happen one day. Imagine Robots walking about wearing SEGA or NINTENDO badges/t-shirts/hats as a symbol etc because they've been taught from older 'bots' and human 'lefties' about the time they were enslaved and only considered any use as entertainment for 'fleshies'/humans. I'll be dead by then.
 
Imagine Robots walking about wearing SEGA or NINTENDO badges/t-shirts/hats as a symbol etc because they've been taught from older 'bots' and human 'lefties' about the time they were enslaved and only considered any use as entertainment for 'fleshies'/humans. I'll be dead by then.
Beaten to death by the angry robots?
 
Here's the latest for those who fear the rise and proliferation of robots ...
Pranksters show how horrifying Boston Dynamics’ police robot dog is by strapping a paintball gun to it

They're letting the internet control it. And Boston Dynamics is furious.

The internet will get a chance to remotely control one of Boston Dynamics’ $75,000 “Spot” robots this week thanks to a mysterious startup company. Not only that, the robot will even come equipped with a paintball gun for added mayhem. ...

The campaign, dubbed "Spot's Rampage," is the brainchild of MSCHF, a New York-based company know for its outrageous publicity stunts and product drops.

MSCHF has repeatedly made headlines for offering up bizarre one-of-a-kind items ... , and its latest effort may be the most over-the-top to date.

On Wednesday at 1pm ET, MSCHF will unleash Spot inside a small art gallery at its headquarters in Brooklyn. Users who visit the campaign's website will get a chance to commandeer Spot for two minutes before another user somewhere in the world takes over. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.dailydot.com/debug/boston-dynamics-robot-spot-paintball-mschf/
 
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As a person who is not always in tune with art galleries....

I think this is a wonderful idea.
 
Looks like a 'spot' unit.

I expect that at some point it will encounter someone with a net, or some other kind of entanglement, and some baseball bats.

I predict an expensive loss for the police.

Surely just an actual dog is cheaper and scarier.
 
Video shows NYPD’s new robotic dog in action in the Bronx

/I give it minus five minutes before the police get the idea to put a gun on it.
/I'm sure this ends poorly for humanity.

https://nypost.com/2021/02/23/video-shows-nypds-new-robotic-dog-in-action-in-the-bronx/
They are one step away

Spot: Boston Dynamics condemns robot paintball rampage plan

A US art installation that will let people control a paintballing robot in a mock art gallery has been condemned by the firm that made the robo-dog.

Boston Dynamics criticised the project, calling it a "provocative use" of its quadruped robot, Spot

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56182268
 
Looks like a 'spot' unit.

I expect that at some point it will encounter someone with a net, or some other kind of entanglement, and some baseball bats.

I predict an expensive loss for the police.

Surely just an actual dog is cheaper and scarier.
If Ewoks can bring down AT-ATs, we can make this thing fall over as well!.. lasso the little sods.
 
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