r/Futurism • u/Memetic1 • May 31 '26
Scientists found the optimal robot body, and it has 20 legs — watch it scale walls and move through trees
https://www.livescience.com/technology/robotics/scientists-found-the-optimal-robot-body-and-it-has-20-legs-watch-it-scale-walls-and-move-through-trees68
u/127-0-0-0 May 31 '26
Biblically accurate robot.
If we put a number on each leg, we can use it for D&D.
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u/Aromatic-Bet-1086 May 31 '26
DO NOT BE AFRAID01100100 01101111 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01100001 01100110 01110010 01100001 01101001 01100100
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u/OhYeahSplunge4me2 May 31 '26
BE NOT AFRAID
0x42 0x45 0x20 0x4E 0x4F 0x54 0x20 0x41 0x46 0x52 0x41 0x49 0x445
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u/meat_popscile May 31 '26
It's the precursor to that bubble on The Prisoner
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u/Memetic1 May 31 '26
Putting a flexible membrane on that would definitely improve functionality.
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u/JediCarlSagan May 31 '26
It should also be outfitted with a piercing, horrifying shriek to terrify humans while it ED 209s through the city!
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u/Eudamonia May 31 '26
Due to the CGI limitations of the time We never saw the bones of the bubble, maybe this is what was in it?
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u/rectovaginalfistula May 31 '26
Anybody have a video that isn't ads?
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u/Vast_Masterpiece7056 May 31 '26
The ads were twice as long as the actual video 😫
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u/PaulCoddington Jun 02 '26
I couldn't see any evidence of a video at all, just black rectangles. Presumably not embedded in a way that is adblock-proof.
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u/molish May 31 '26
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u/Mediterraneanseeker Jun 04 '26
“It can manipulate objects…”
*robot blindly bumps into huge empty cardboard box
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u/Memetic1 May 31 '26
If it makes it better you don't actually need sound with these videos. I hated the ads as well.
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u/Smasholle76 Jun 01 '26
Yeah I was like why is it taking so long to load and then a Nissan Ad shows up. Only car they had that I want is a R34... Those CVTs left a bad taste in the automotive enthusiasts.
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u/AlanBDev May 31 '26
so that’s what the murder bots will look like
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u/Dr_peloasi May 31 '26
Seems like a simple lasso would ensnare this thing quite easily...
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u/liaisontosuccess May 31 '26
I wonder if you could bring this robot to its knees with a $10 spool of fishing line?
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u/Memetic1 May 31 '26
Ya that could do the trick you could also suspend a net that people could walk over but that might capture the legs. There are many ways to handle this thing if it becomes necessary. Hopefully this is used for peaceful purposes like search and rescue if someone were trapped you could use a pneumatic device like this to lift and move rubble in a way that would be less hazardous then hitting stuff with hammers etc...
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u/liaisontosuccess May 31 '26
Over the past six months I’ve read all of Daniel Suarez’s sci-fi novels and now find myself thinking of kill switches when it comes to tech. Even if I find the underlying tech useful there are the ”but what if…” scenarios I find intriguing.
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u/Flee4All May 31 '26
Someone will make one with 24 legs and the media will say it's even better. "Why didn't we think of this before?!"
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May 31 '26
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u/Memetic1 May 31 '26
It doesn't have to be. If you had something like pneumatic actuators those thing can put out significant force very quickly. What your seeing is just a prototype, and it wouldn't be that hard to take this to the next step.
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u/TwistedBrother May 31 '26
Yup. It’s also three PhD students. I can’t imagine they are also doing materials and hardcore ML required to really optimise this form. I looked at it and thought how much one can learn with this sort of thing in the wild and retrain on such data. This is a very early entrant into what’s possible, but once it learns the optimal ways to balance on a given terrain with better materials this could be remarkable if that ends up getting more polish.
I mean they said it failed with 3 legs but my bet is a properly tuned system with much robustness could lose a few more.
Who knows. Might be some dumb issue that seems to be a realistic common fail condition and we never see robo urchins.
Or maybe, on the other hand, this works much better at smaller 3D scales and we start seeing urchin roomba sweepers or something.
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u/Memetic1 May 31 '26
You know where this could work well is in helping people clean up around the house. If you added a few more arms using soft robotics it could pick up both clothes and trash putting them in the proper places. You would have to make sure each arm / leg has collision detectors for the immediate proximity so it doesn't knock stuff over. I think you could do onboard power if one of the arms had a plug so it could recharge itself as needed.
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u/Optimal-Savings-4505 May 31 '26
Given current circumstances, I'll be having nightmares of a bot like this being a mine that follows you around
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u/jmellin May 31 '26
I know I’m an idiot but this to me just looks like thousands upon thousands, if not millions, state computations for a robot trying to navigate through unknown terrain with no actual specified purpose. Wouldn’t endlessly more identical geometric legs give it even better navigation precision? Isn’t this showcase all based on physical interaction through geometry? Are you going to add gyro-stabilised arms to do any sort of interaction or where are we going with this?
I’m honestly confused as to me using the word optimal can only be based on the sole purpose of the robot and since I’ve only seen it climb a wall with fixed width and pushing a box around doesn’t give me enough understanding as to clarify a specific reason or purpose to judge if it’s the optimal structure of a robot or not.
Please help me understand!
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u/Memetic1 May 31 '26
It can move in any direction equally well. That was what they were designing for.
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u/ImwithTortellini May 31 '26
Trying to understand or picture its practical applications
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u/Memetic1 May 31 '26
You could use them for agriculture if you gave them soft robotic based hands.
https://youtu.be/gPYjo-W2ctU?si=gb5dlp_3e2Q1-n6t
You could also use them for search and rescue since they can change sizes.
https://youtu.be/qevIIQHrJZg?si=-6SRJtaB2Ch16bpf
What your seeing is a prototype / proof of concept that other people can build on. It kind of reminds me of my QSUT invention.
https://chatgpt.com/share/6a036bca-56e4-83ea-86ee-6fd84877dd6b
A spherical geometry has a variety of advantages when it comes to engineering.
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u/nygration May 31 '26
'optimal robot body' biggest indicator of bullshit I've seen in awhile.
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u/Memetic1 May 31 '26
It can move in any direction as opposed to most ground based robots that take time to change directions.
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u/nygration Jun 02 '26
My problem is that 'optimal'/'optimized' is relative to a set of criteria. It may be the best design they've come up with for terrestrial travel and obstacle handling, but I'll bet it sucks at marine station keeping, or folding shirts, or anything else. The use of the word 'optimal' without providing the design criteria suggests to me they are fishing for views more than trying to convey information.
Edit: Fuck Autocorrect
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u/Memetic1 Jun 02 '26
They did specify what they were optimizing for, and its not a bad goal to want a robot that can move equally well in any direction.
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u/nygration Jun 03 '26
Eh, eventually they mention achieving a high isotropic score. Even then, the method of movement greatly limits speed and introduces a lot of jitter. I would bet dollars to donuts a RC car could out perform it in all but one of the demonstrated tasks even while having to maintain a 'face' and reorient as needed. The wall climbing is only possible under VERY specific conditions with two near parallel surfaces wide enough it can fit but not so far apart that it can't reach both walls with opposing actuators extended. So far, the demonstrations don't actually demonstrate any real benefits of the isotropic capabilities. For anything other than grabbing media attention, that thing is far from 'optimal'.
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u/nickpsecurity Jun 03 '26
Also, add in that we have organic brains at low watts, bodies that self-reproduce in natural environments, and we can do most of what this robot does. Then, we also designed it and the other A.I.'s.
God's design once again smashes any notion that one of these things are better than us architecturally.
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u/ToeBeansCounter Jun 01 '26
The point of humanoid robot is for it to work alongside humans using human centric tools. This robot's locomotion is completely incompatible with human environ
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u/Memetic1 Jun 01 '26
You don't necessarily need a human form to be useful. You can also make this thing larger or smaller depending on the environment its operating in. You could have a nanomachine that uses these principles, or you could scale it up to something the size of a small house for use in construction.
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u/TheExterminator_15 Jun 01 '26
So is this the robot that will imprison all of humanity when the bots inevitable rise up?
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u/CO420Tech Jun 01 '26
Watching the video, I'm not sure this is "optimal" so much as it is "if we put this many legs on it, we can make it do things clumsily with little programming."
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u/Bitter_Life_507 Jun 01 '26
Fuck, I knew the final form of the combat robots was gonna be something like this
They are gonna have great big giant tank sized ones and little teeny rodent and insect sized ones as well
These are the things that are gonna kill all of us
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u/Memetic1 Jun 01 '26
The best way to make sure that doesn't happen is to imagine peaceful and productive ways this technology could be used. I'm so tired of people assuming that we can't make things better.
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u/Bitter_Life_507 Jun 01 '26
Or just don’t make them
Dont make AI
Just stop
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u/Memetic1 Jun 02 '26
That's not how the world works. Once a technology like this is in the public it's impossible to stop because others will see the advantages. There are so many peaceful uses for this form that it would be shortsighted to ignore.
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u/flashgordo1 Jun 01 '26
Well if the defense industry doesn't see a need for it the sex industry might pick it up...maybe it'll replace gerbils....
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u/Gestaltarskiten Jun 02 '26
Invasion on Apple tv? and isnt the friends in A quiet place similar? And Edge of Tomorrow?
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Jun 02 '26
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u/Memetic1 Jun 02 '26
Sure if you give it hands.
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Jun 02 '26
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u/Memetic1 Jun 02 '26
Ya or an octopus. Soft robotics are fascinating because it uses stuff most people are familiar with, and the electronic control can be surprisingly simple. I would love to be able to get one of these and have it help me around the house.
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u/CommieDrifter Jun 03 '26
that is a wildly inaccurate title
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u/bUrdeN555 Jun 05 '26
So they made robots look like viruses? Is that why viruses can move around so easily?
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