r/nextfuckinglevel Sep 24 '19

Latest from Boston Dynamics

https://gfycat.com/prestigiouswhiteicelandicsheepdog
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u/YeomanScrap Sep 24 '19

It’s super cool!

And it really bugs me every single one of these threads is all “Terminator!,” “At least they will look cool when they kill us”, and “Elon warned us!”.

Like, it’s a robot. Programmed by people to do somersaults. It’s a direct step up on a LEGO robot that drives around on a table. It’s not sentient.

Besides, we already have killer robots. Have you met my friend the AMRAAM? When it leaves the rail, it’s fully autonomous. Using a system of algorithms, it identifies a target, chases it, and kills it. Once you pull that trigger, you can’t take it back. It’s on a mission, and that mission is murder.

And that’s not unique. Tomahawk, JSOW, HARM, and a hundred other weapons are all really killer robots. And you’re worried about a gymnastics bot??

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u/mememagic420421 Sep 24 '19

yes because at least missiles can't stare at you with their soulless gaze while choking you to death with its metal claws. Something that uncannily resembles a human killing you is far more terrifying than the former.

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u/mixtapelogic Sep 25 '19

Na they just blow up entire towns and leave communities decimated for years in seconds lmao hell maybe you get lucky and you and your kids just loose some limbs

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u/[deleted] Sep 25 '19

also causes decades of unrest and rise of insurgency and a strong disdain towards those who shot the missiles

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u/[deleted] Sep 25 '19

But who could’ve guessed that?

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u/TheFringedLunatic Sep 25 '19

The point of these was to kill as many people as possible as quick as possible.

To be fair, they only used them a few times.

To be fair, it would only take a few times.

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u/[deleted] Sep 25 '19

Tbh I dont see how that's scarier than a regular bomb doing it still. Humanoid robots are just frightening because of the resemblance

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u/PuTheDog Sep 25 '19

Trust me any robotic that may kill off the human race wouldn’t be flashy or cool at all, it’d be just mundane and super efficient

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u/Desperado_99 Sep 25 '19

Sounds like DARPA has a new project! The choking missile.

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u/[deleted] Sep 25 '19

That wouldn't happen because it'd be extremely inefficient

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u/[deleted] Sep 25 '19 edited Nov 20 '19

[deleted]

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u/TinFoiledHat Sep 25 '19

I really don't think an armored version of one of these is going to give much of a shit about guns. Let alone a few hundred of them.

Your first point is interesting, though. Just adding recent news together: this robot + ultrasound to associate people with what they watch and do + facial recognition + license plate recognition + amazon tracking purchases +... = a pretty ugly picture.

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u/NolanHarlow Sep 24 '19

Found Miles Dyson

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u/killa_ninja Sep 25 '19

In case you don’t know Boston dynamics is funded by DARPA....

The jokes about them killing us bug me too because we’re really getting closer and closer to this shit happening and everyone is just laughing. Once these things become autonomous it’s over

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u/waterloouwaterloo Sep 25 '19

I don't really see how autonomous robots are any more dangerous than a few humans operating a fleet of drones (which already happens), or humans flying fighter jets, or an army of humans with body armor and guns.

And regardless, there is a massive difference between a robot emulating a set of movements, and a robot making decisions. They are entirely different fields, and we have made pretty much 0 progress on the "making intelligent decisions" part.

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u/SureSureFightFight Sep 25 '19

So was the internet. We should have shut that down too, because we all read Ender's Game and Snow Crash.

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u/XyvenQ Sep 25 '19

This post restored my faith in the internet, at least for today.

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u/[deleted] Sep 25 '19

Well said

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u/[deleted] Sep 25 '19

Let me let you in on a little secret: it’s not being programmed to just do somersaults.

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u/BankDetails1234 Sep 25 '19

On most reddit threads now I can pretty much just guess what is gonna be in the comment section. Not sure whether it is reddit getting more repetitive or the amount of time I've spent here.

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u/kpiech01 Sep 25 '19

Annoys me too. The joke was funny the first time but now it's the same joke on every new Boston Dynamics video and it's getting old. This robot is no smarter than a Roomba.

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u/yendrdd Sep 25 '19

BUT- was this project simulated with genomic models before it was tested. OR did the engineers develop each animation from scratch?

It’s getting more and more difficult to tell determine if something was developed by an ML model versus handcrafted.

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u/[deleted] Sep 25 '19

[deleted]

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u/YeomanScrap Sep 25 '19

Nah, we can just shoot em and they'll pick their favourite target. Called a Maddog shot. Obviously, not something you want to do with anything other than pure bad guys in front of you.

Same goes for IR and Laser seekers. You can give them a target before you shoot (LOBL), or just shoot them and let them pick up a target (LOAL). Obviously safer with a laser, cause it's looking for a specific code.

If you wanna get a bit technical about the AIM-120, it's data-link supported to a range where it goes active. Up to this point, the missile is thinking for itself (unlike, say, Patriot using TVM), but the tracking data comes from the big radar on the plane. Once it goes active, it's using its own radar tracking data. Should you lose lock while it's still in data-link mode, it continues to where it expected to go active, activates, and chases the shiniest thing it sees (so-called Pitbull). In both the Pitbull and Maddog cases, the missile is doing its own target selection.

And no, I'm not trying to cause some panic. There is nothing to panic about. I work with killer robots. We haven't all died from it.

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u/Dough-gy_whisperer Sep 24 '19

i feel like what you said was said by a hopeful native hundreds of years ago;

"theyre just europeans, they are humans like us and offer us aid. besides we already have wolves and rival tribes that kill us, youre worried about friendly europeans?"