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Boston Dynamics introduces a fully electric humanoid robot that “exceeds human performance”
(spectrum.ieee.org)
this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
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I mean, the planet's dying, but ok. At least we've got robots that "excced human performance" in making their overlords profits. Imagine if these scientists were putting their efforts to real use.
Cancer rope-a-doping us with robots and AI.
I was already thinking this reminded me of The Talos Principle but your "the planet is dying" comment makes it even more close of a match. Those games are awesome.
of all the things scientists do, making robots that can do dangerous or even tedious labor isn't that bad.
Is it going to be used to do dangerous labor, or just expensive labor? I have a feeling the places like the cobalt mines in Africa will be among the last to get robot workers while McDonalds in countries with first world wages will probably be among the first.
the scientists build the robots. Society and its corruption will determine how they get used. I don't think it's a reason to not build robots or to say they're not worth making. At some point in the future, society may collectively improve and the robots will be there to use.
Not all technology is inherently neutral, and scientists know this. Scientists also typically know whos funding them. You think anyone at BD was surprised to see their work on a robot dog end up by the sides of police to be deployed at protests?
The hour's growing late there. We needed to solve that problem before this technology became available. Just need useful life-extension technology and then it'll just be a bunch of rich psychopaths running around the planet, and everyone else will be disposed of.
It's probably one of the biggest potential saviors tbh, having robots efficiently construct wind turbines and solar arrays in inhospitable locations will help us transition from oil far faster and more efficiently.
I know a lot of people want to go back to having half the world impoverished so we can exploit their cheap labour like in the good old days but technology already helped them access education and stuff so that game is over.
These bots aren't designed for that. They're designed to replace humans in human-form-factor job infrastructure. Think less "installing wind turbines" and more "replacing all the human pickers in an Amazon warehouse."
You don't think humans install wind turbines or build solar farms? How do you imagine they come into existence?
They're multitasking robots able to do a range of complex tasks, sure they'll stock shelves oneday but the most cost effective and therefore first uses will be in hostile environments where it's very expensive to have humans work. Undersea welding for example is a brutal job which requires all sorts of safety and habitability stuff that makes it hugely expensive even before the high wages those people earn - cutting this from the cost of infrastructure projects will make it much tcheaper for offshore wind projects. Especially as working conditions and human considerations make it impossible for continuous work where as robots can just work until its done.
My dad was the first of our male line to live over 35 in five generations, he was also the first never to work down a mine - people just used to accept poor people dying as the cost of living comfortably lives, the work needed to be done so someone had to do it... just as how I can't imagine being in the situation of my grandfather so too will humanity move beyond the destruction of our lives that forced drudgery brings upon us.
Rich people don't choose to stand stacking shelves all day, there's a reason for that. Do not fight to keep such awful things, fight to make a world where we can live well without needing them
At least they aren’t only working on preventing hair loss and prolonging erections
Is there a difference?
Paraphrasing a joke from a movie called “Idiocracy”
Lemmings reading you right now:
Lol, not really. I'm rolling my eyes. It's just more doom and gloom reaction to a legitimately useful piece of technology, which could be just as much benefit to humanity as a detriment.
Plus the idea that the people who worked on this might have even been capable of working on something more "useful" to humanity is complete and utter moon shot speculation, along with the idea that this is mutually exclusive to research and development of "useful" things.
I'll reserve my cynicism for when these actually start trending towards replacing human workforce, like how LLMs are being misused. Most of Boston Dynamics's stuff doesn't have massive effects on the world, it's more specialized use cases.
It's gonna kill us
The planet is fine, humanity is dying. But that's ok.
Is it, though?
Yes. The planet doesn't give a single fuck. It went through many extinction level events and it's still here.
Along with thousands of other species. That's not ok.
I wish it were only thousands.
The sun will start increasing in luminosity within a billion years, at which point it will be intense enough to cause rocks to begin soaking up CO2 to a point where photosynthesis will become difficult, and the planetary food chain will collapse.
The hour is much later than we think. Maybe another supercontinent cycle or so?
The real worst-case that you don't hear in media is turning Earth into a situation similar to Venus. At that point there's a real small chance of even extremophiles much less anything complex. Of course the planet will still rotate and continue orbiting the sun but earth-based life would probably only exist in some of our space junk like the poop bags Apollo left on the moon.
Because that level of environmental collapse is many lifetimes away, if it's coming at all.
One of the benefits of humans dying out, which everyone seems so sure about, is that as humanity dwindles, so too will the continued damage to the ecosystem.
May not stop it, but would certainly hamper the acceleration of things.
Unfortunately, not super relevant. The earth->Venus scenario is about a positive feedback loop. So stopping our emissions after that tipping point doesn't help.
Yeah though we are really good at surviving as long as there is anything at all to survive on.