If you thought that DARPA robot dog was scary...

[Ginger Yellow]

If you thought that DARPA robot dog was scary...

So, Korea's DRC-Hubo won the contest, though interestingly several teams with very different designs managed to complete all the tasks, including Running Man from earlier in this thread. Boston Dynamics wasn't even competing. Still trying to dig up some footage of the winning runs, though IEEE has some fun footage on Youtube of the robots falling over, if you want to lull yourself into a false sense of security.

[Ginger Yellow]

If you thought that DARPA robot dog was scary...

Robots in spaaaaace!

[hobbes]

If you thought that DARPA robot dog was scary...

I don't think I would have been sad if this robot had turned around and ripped the beardy twat's head off.

[Wouter D]

If you thought that DARPA robot dog was scary...

hobbes wrote: I don't think I would have been sad if this robot had turned around and ripped the beardy twat's head off.

Surely, the final shot is the robot thinking "fuck it, I'm out" and disappearing from beardy twat's life.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

If you thought that DARPA robot dog was scary...

Crikey, I had two reactions to that, presumably standard ones:

1. awesome technology!

2. I feel like a participant in some psychology experiment, which tests how the humanoid structure of the robot generates emotional reactions of (in this context strictly) irrational shock and emphathy when you see it being "abused".

[ursus arctos]

If you thought that DARPA robot dog was scary...

Go Champ Almost Gone

Make that, A.I. 2, human Go champion 0. Early Thursday morning Eastern time, Google’s AlphaGo software once again defeated 18-time world champion Lee Sedol in the second game of their five-game Go match in Seoul.

[ursus arctos]

If you thought that DARPA robot dog was scary...

Google looks to divest Robot Canine Abuse unit.

Executives at Google parent Alphabet Inc., absorbed with making sure all the various companies under its corporate umbrella have plans to generate real revenue, concluded that Boston Dynamics isn’t likely to produce a marketable product in the next few years and have put the unit up for sale, according to two people familiar with the company’s plans.

[Incandenza]

If you thought that DARPA robot dog was scary...

For your enjoyment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVvqAuvX5WY

[evilC]

If you thought that DARPA robot dog was scary...

A whole new level of scariness!

[Stumpy Pepys]

Google's AI makes reservations over the phone – scroll down to the audio clips.

[SouthdownRebel]

I watched this on the live stream from Google's I/O conference* yesterday. Regardless of what you think of AI in an ethical sense, it's pretty incredible technology even if it only handles a limited range of scenarios like booking appointments. Question: can I train it to phone in sick for me and sound convincingly ill? Could it be used to keep cold callers talking for hours, thereby restoring balance to the force? Could it fill in for me while Aunty Ethel** drones on and on so I can watch TV instead?

* Which should definitely be called Geekstock - there were people with flags and banners, and a Mexican wave going. When the CEO walked out he was greeted with cheers, whoops and hollers in a way that definitely shouldn't be acceptable at an industry conference / glorified corporate propaganda event
** Names have been changed to protect the imaginary

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

When the CEO walked out he was greeted with cheers, whoops and hollers in a way that definitely shouldn't be acceptable at an industry conference / glorified corporate propaganda event

Steve Ballmer set an unbeatably low bar for that kind of cringeworthily inappropriate raucousness at a corporate info-tech presentation. It won't ever cross the Atlantic, will it?

[ad hoc]

The kids (well my kids who appear to be up-to-date with all the latest memes) in particular like guffawing at some guy ("Dad, he must have been as old as you!") doing a spiel on stage for something called BitConnect

[Gangster Octopus]

Crawling finger-phone

[Benjm]

Finger-phone, or phone-finger depending which way you want to go with the theme song, is absolutely hilarious.

[Jah Womble]

I thought the guy was saying 'I had tons of females asking me about it' - which made me suspect where this as a product might in time be headed.

But what he actually said was 'tons of emails'.

Either way, I don't really get it.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

It will be useful as a prop if they ever do a remake of Carry on Screaming. Otherwise, pretty pointless.

[Gangster Octopus]

Or a remake of Christopher Lee's bit in Dr. Terror's House Of Horror...

[ursus arctos]

Not really sure where to put this, but it is creepy AF.

And of course UK law firms are the early adopters.

https://twitter.com/FrankPasquale/status/1114924827675103232

[Femme Folle]

If Orwell had known about email, I'm sure that would have been described in '1984'.

[ursus arctos]

If one had told Orwell that tens of millions of people would gleefully welcome surveillance robots with female names into their homes and onto their persons without the need for any governmental coercion, he would have rejected the premise out of hand.

[Incandenza]

When Boston Dynamics first started making their robot dog, I don't think they had envisioned it serving as a cheerleader to provide atmosphere in an otherwise empty stadium due to a global pandemic, but here we are...

[URL="https://twitter.com/grantcohn/status/1280865912841596930"]https://twitter.com/grantcohn/status...65912841596930[/URL]

[Nocturnal Submission]

Fantastic.

[Ginger Yellow]

Incidentally, they recently put a list price on Spot. It's $75k.

[Incandenza]

I was wondering if they got a bulk discount.