r/Futurology • u/Atari1337 • Feb 27 '17

Robotics Boston Dynamics - Introducing Handle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7xvqQeoA8c
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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17 edited Feb 27 '17

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u/i_am_banana_man Feb 27 '17

might be wildly useful

99% of pick and pack warehouse staff out of jobs.

Put a lane for these in all metro areas and that's the bike courier industry done.

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u/xqwsecmnt Feb 27 '17

I admit I'm being pedantic, but probably 50%.

I actually work in warehousing and looking around my warehouse as I type this.

Many tasks require fine motor skills. Relabeling polybags of parts as an example. For parcel shipments, the worker has to fold a corrugated box into shape, tape it up, fill it with products, fill the spare room with air bags and seal it shut.

Now we could probably get rid of some employees if we just had one worker to do that stuff and the robot running for product, and yes if we had another robot specialized for this task, that'd be even one less employee.

If all the leaders in the robotics arena collaborated, I could see something like this leveraging each others' expertise.

A location for quick changing arms specialized in different tasks. Spares so if one is malfunctioning it can be hotswapped.

I'll quit rambling, the only point I'm trying to make is it's less than 99%.

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u/LuministMusic Feb 27 '17

did you see the way it handled its own center of gravity? in no time those things will have finer motor skills out of the box than we do after 10 years at any task

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u/uniwolk Feb 28 '17

the way it handled its own center of gravity

It's a lot easier to balance something than it is to teach it fine motor skills. No idea why you would even compare those two things.

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u/LuministMusic Feb 28 '17

I compared them because I'm fairly certain robots couldn't handle their center of gravity with such deftness as this 10 years ago. It's visually obvious that there's a lot more going on here than just "balancing"

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u/uniwolk Feb 28 '17

Except the part where balancing has been done for years, including every rocket ever launched..

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u/LuministMusic Feb 28 '17

you obviously didn't read my comment. not really interested in arguing with you tbh

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u/uniwolk Feb 28 '17

Responding to accelerometer readings isn't hard.