Atlas is autonomously moving engine covers between supplier containers and a mobile sequencing dolly. The robot receives as input a list of bin locations to ...
They still have the hockey stick around as a reminder to Atlas.
At the moment it still looks like a technology demonstrator, but with what we saw in this video there are a small percentage of jobs it could likely do today replacing human workers.
My guess is that the task we saw it doing is actually a human job today. The objects being moved from rack to rack were plastic engine covers. The racks are labeled with “Engine covers”. That is WAY too specific to be random. My guess is that they worked/are working with an automotive assembly company to identify tasks that humans do today that a robot could do tomorrow. The auto company likely provided the engine cover parts as well as the racks and described the parameters for the job.
Even if you look at the Boston Dynamics robot and say that a human could do that faster/cheaper/better, consider that the robot works 24/7 with no sick days, vacations, or family emergencies. From a purely business perspective, the robot could be a game-changer for the better. From a societal view, this will have serious negative consequences to the people that our society will need to evolve to change for the better.
To add your last paragraph - today’s robot may be worse but next year’s robot might not be. And with how far Boston Dynamics (and others) have come in such a short time, it’s not hard to imagine that future getting here soon.
Corporations have shown time and time again they fire people by the thousands as soon as it’s financially viable and since this tech will be implemented quickly across the industry, those ex-employees won’t be able to find work. Governments need to start taking UBI seriously if they don’t want to massive civil unrest.
As much as I cringe at the “come and take it” crowd, a lot of them work these at-risk jobs. They will take their anger at their ex-employee and aim it at the government.
That’s the rub, isn’t it? From a society view, having manual labor all done by robots is also a positive game changer, as it protects human health with no loss in standard of living, but because we will just lay people off with no support, it will instead plunge our society into despair.
The automation tax that gates/etc proposed to fund UBI/social support networks is making more and more sense.
They said the same about robots in the 80s, particularly automotive industry robots. They were going to turn society on it’s ear and it was a non-stop news item for some time.
At the moment it still looks like a technology demonstrator, but with what we saw in this video there are a small percentage of jobs it could likely do today replacing human workers.
My guess is that the task we saw it doing is actually a human job today. The objects being moved from rack to rack were plastic engine covers. The racks are labeled with “Engine covers”. That is WAY too specific to be random. My guess is that they worked/are working with an automotive assembly company to identify tasks that humans do today that a robot could do tomorrow. The auto company likely provided the engine cover parts as well as the racks and described the parameters for the job.
Even if you look at the Boston Dynamics robot and say that a human could do that faster/cheaper/better, consider that the robot works 24/7 with no sick days, vacations, or family emergencies. From a purely business perspective, the robot could be a game-changer for the better. From a societal view, this will have serious negative consequences to the people that our society will need to evolve to change for the better.
To add your last paragraph - today’s robot may be worse but next year’s robot might not be. And with how far Boston Dynamics (and others) have come in such a short time, it’s not hard to imagine that future getting here soon.
Corporations have shown time and time again they fire people by the thousands as soon as it’s financially viable and since this tech will be implemented quickly across the industry, those ex-employees won’t be able to find work. Governments need to start taking UBI seriously if they don’t want to massive civil unrest.
As much as I cringe at the “come and take it” crowd, a lot of them work these at-risk jobs. They will take their anger at their ex-employee and aim it at the government.
That’s the rub, isn’t it? From a society view, having manual labor all done by robots is also a positive game changer, as it protects human health with no loss in standard of living, but because we will just lay people off with no support, it will instead plunge our society into despair.
The automation tax that gates/etc proposed to fund UBI/social support networks is making more and more sense.
They said the same about robots in the 80s, particularly automotive industry robots. They were going to turn society on it’s ear and it was a non-stop news item for some time.
The point with factory work is that you don’t need half of what this robot can do if you change the plan of the factory a bit.
So no I don’t think the idea here is for standard factory work.