Picture this: you’re at work in scaffolding, gleefully hitting some random thing with your hammer to make it look like you’re at work, only to realize you’ve forgotten your entire tool bag. Now how are you going to pretend to do any work? Do not worry. Just flip out your phone, tap a few buttons in your robo-servant app and your on-site robot helper will deliver it right to you.
This is the future. A place where artificially intelligent robots not only help in the workplace, but also amuse us with hardcore parkour moves. In fact, Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot has been demonstrating just the kind of high-energy skills we’d like to see in the workplace as of late.
In a behind the scenes video (opens in new tab)Atlas team leader Scott Kuindersma notes that the robot’s latest achievements are intended as an example of an “expansion of the research we do at Atlas.”
Now, instead of simply performing a sequence of actions around static objects, like the assault course Atlas mastered recently fail in parkour (opens in new tab) time and time again, the robot learns to better perceive and manipulate the environment around it.
When we interact with the world, we’ve been in it long enough to automatically adjust how much force we apply to a thrown object, or put into a jump, but as a baby in the world, Atlas has to learn these things as he goes.
“The robot has to be able to think about the properties of objects. Their shape. Their mass properties. And as it manipulates these objects, the constraints that are there between the robot and the object. The forces that are there. And it has to have a control system capable of balancing potentially competing objectives with respect to stability or the manipulation task at hand.”
In case of deformable objects (opens in new tab)this is an even more difficult task than you might imagine, though Atlas seems to be getting the hang of tossing bags around, so maybe massage-programmed elder care robots aren’t far behind.
I’m sure the aspiring construction students are all cringing right now, worried about the displacement already taking place in the art space, as well as in the craft field. And look, nobody wants to be replaced by a robot. I understand. That fear is looming in the minds of much of the population right now, including myself, as Open AI Chat GPT is getting smarter by the day.
Whatever stage the robot takeover is at in terms of your work area, the robot legions won’t be spreading anytime soon. Might as well embrace it I guess. Who’s to question our overlords, especially when the robots are around? Boston Dynamics can boogie (opens in new tab) better than most of us.