Yesterday, boston dynamics posted a video on youtube bidding farewell to the old Atlas, humanoid robot that most of us have associated the company with.
This was pretty sad, as the little guy was a very iconic(mainly thanks to all the videos of people pushing it around and abusing and the fear a future skynet wouldn’t like that very much), but we didn’t have long to mourn it’s cyberdeath. Just a couple hours ago, Boston Dynamics released a super short video featuring their brand new human-like bot… named exactly the same!
and it’s definitely not similar to pixar’s lamp
New beginnings
The new Atlas bot will initially be used by Hyundai(which if you don’t know, is a car company). In addition to being an investor, they wish to use the robot to help automate manufacturing of their cars, as well as serve as a test of what the robot can do and be used for. This real life application of such new technology comes from the realization that, for Boston Dynamics to advance their product further, they need it to be used in real world scenarios(genius, right?)
According to the company, this new version of Atlas is fully eletric, making it stronger, more agile and giving it a broader range of motion(like seen in the totally not creepy video above) than previous generations, which used mostly hydraulics. This new iteration also contains new gripper variations, allowing it to handle far more types of objects.
Despite being an impressive upgrade, physically speaking, the software parts didn’t say behind. Boston Dynamics emphasizes the importance of software, with advancements in AI and machine learning, by equipping the new robots with reinforcement learning and computer vision. Their Orbit™ software centralizes robot fleet management, site mapping, and digital transformation data, making robotics integration seamless and efficient. Its already available for their Spot bot, but they promise that Stretch and Atlas are going to be added to it soon.
Future
Other than being obviously creeped out by the way the new atlas got up and moved towards the camera(thanks marketing team, I won’t sleep well tonight), most people, myself included, are honestly surprised by the advances. The new design seems slimmer, moving in a much more precise and articulate way. Its more capable, faster and, who knows, in the future it could do almost anything humans can.
This kind of new technology is both exciting and scary. A robot like this could help humans in a wide variety of areas, like rescuing survivors of disasters in difficult to access or dangerous places, mars exploration/building bases on the moon, assistants for older people, etc but at the same time, there will always be the fear of “what if robots replace me?”. With the way A.I. and robotics are advancing, despite being nowhere near actually inteligent currently, I don’t blame anyone who worries their jobs will be taken, or lives, in the case we end up in a skynet-like future. My only hope is that we either create new laws to protect humanity’s place in the world, or that our future A.I. overlords have mercy on us.
Source: Boston Dynamics blog
