You expect too much from Boston Dynamics robots

On Sunday night at the WIRED25 festival in San Francisco, the Boston Dynamics SpotMini robot came on the scene and did what no other quadruped robot had done before: he danced the runner as he was born at. It was a little more, well, robotics that a human, but it showed how Spot had progressed: after 25 years of life in the life of WIRED and Boston Dynamics, the robots finally became sophisticated enough to dance in our world. And much more than that, of course.

As impressive as Spot's new movements are, they were paired with a candid speech by Marc Raibert, the Boston Dynamics boss, who spoke with WIRED's editor-in-chief, Nicholas Thompson, about the capabilities, aspirations, and aspirations. future of Spot and the humanoid robot Atlas.

A few days ago, you may have seen the video showing Atlas doing parkour, easily linking a multi-level structure. Although the performance seemed effortless, it took more than 20 attempts. "In our videos, we usually show the best behavior," said Raibert. "This is not the average behavior or the typical behavior. And we think it's an ambitious goal for what robots do. "

This creates an interesting tension. Whenever Boston Dynamics broadcasts a video of its robots opening doors or performing backflips, the Internet suffers a collective heart attack. (Raibert himself helps edit these videos, by the way.) The machines move with astonishing, perhaps haunting animality, spawning the inevitable articles about the machines that invade the world.

In fact, they are so far away from doing so, that it is more productive to talk about how climate change is going to destroy the planet long before that. If you need a robot to try to cross a door and pursue you in the street, it will be hard to catch up.

"Currently, robot technology has evolved a lot," said Raibert, "but that's not quite what we'd like. So I think our job is to push the boundaries, but also to look for the best possible uses of technology as we have it. "

To be clear, these machines are incredible. After Spot danced on stage tonight, he ventured into the street and drew a crowd. People love this thing, even when it stumbles, picks up bags and hats with its serpent-shaped arm.

But when Spot comes on the market next year, customers will have to understand that their video performance is not always up to the task. The company will debut with Business Spot, not Party Spot. This means allowing buyers to customize the machine with particular packages, such as more cameras for surveillance or special sensors to monitor construction sites. Spot may be able to make a naughty man run, but at the base, he is a worker who will have to meet certain expectations of work, not the internet.

Boston Dynamics hopes that Spot will find a job in a wide range of industries. But the choice of robot depends largely on the customers, not Boston Dynamics itself. "We could try to create a special solution for a particular area, but we do not know which area to focus on," said Raibert. "So we create a platform and hope that the ecosystem will allow us to find places where people can really use it."

Right now, the "idea" of SpotMini you get on the Internet is idealistic, although not necessarily unrealistic: the company's humanoid robots are turning around and its quadrupeds are autonomous browsing environments . The Internet may have built Boston Dynamics machines into virtual machines, but the market will determine the future. So, if you're looking for a dance teacher who's never tired, now is the time to speak.

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