Remember That Door-Opening Dog-Robot? It Can Fight Off Humans Now, And We Are All Scared
Yes, it's heartbreaking but also necessary.
Remember that dog robot from Boston Dynamics called SpotMini? The one that helped its buddy by opening the door for it? Yeah, it¡¯s tussling with its creators right now.
Boston Dynamics just uploaded a video of the robot doing its thing, minding its own business. All of a sudden, a human comes along with a hockey stick and starts messing with the bot, doing everything in his power to stop it from opening the door. He pushes away the crane arm, pushes the door shut, even drags the dog robot away by its ¡°tail¡± as it struggles to grab the handle. Eventually, the poor thing finally manages to makes its way through the doorway
This might just look like someone being spiteful towards an adorable little machine, but it¡¯s a very important exercise. The team is actually testing the robot¡¯s stability, as well as its ability to deal with unpredictable obstacles when performing a task. In this particular clip, SpotMini¡¯s performance is impressive, even if you don¡¯t realise it.
In the video, every attempt to struggle against the human¡¯s obstructions isn¡¯t pre-programmed; it¡¯s actually working autonomously. A handler only placed the robot in front of the door and then instructed it to open it and proceed through. Everything else is robot trying to adapt. That¡¯s amazing, considering just how hard it is to get a robot not to fall down even without being messed with.
Of course, SpotMini is only that good right now for a few limited tasks. We¡¯re still a long way away from them having this kind of autonomy for varied instructions. Then again, it may not be very long before they¡¯re trundling through our homes and streets, trying to serve while still dealing with the inevitable robot abusers.
