Well, this is just impressive. Let’s see YOU do this…
And the “Spot” robot going through a construction site in Japan carrying out inspections:
Note that both videos are composed of relatively short segments. The Spot video edits a number of shots together to create a narrative of the robot going about its business, but note that the robotic arm comes and goes. So that video was clearly pieced together from various separate exercises. It’s not clear just how long either robot can do what it’s doing before it either gets confused or its batteries run down (or, for that matter, how much time had to be spent “teaching” each robot how to do they tasks they are shown doing, or if they were given simple directions and the robots figured the details out for themselves). Power remains an issue with systems like these: batteries suck for energy density, but they are quiet; standard fossil-fuel powered generators have fantastic energy density, but they are louder than an SJW NPC programmed to seem enraged. Some sort of chemically-fueled fuel cell technology might be the best approach, especially if the robots are capable of recharging themselves safely and reliably.
An idea: a series of Atlas robots, wrapped in adequate armor sheathing to protect them from basic harm, equipped with loudspeakers and programmed to march into groups of protestors and simply scream back at them the things they themselves are screaming. Just louder.
Here’s something I don’t like about Boston Dynamics:
On 13 December 2013, the company was acquired by Google X (later X, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.) for an unknown price,[8] where it was managed by Andy Rubin until his departure from Google in 2014.[9] Immediately before the acquisition, Boston Dynamics transferred their DI-Guy software product line to VT MÄK, a simulation software vendor based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[10] On 8 June 2017, Alphabet Inc. announced the sale of the company to Japan’s SoftBank Group for an undisclosed sum.[11]
It’s an American company on the leading edge of technological development, creating robots with a clear military application. And the company is foreign-owned. Eehhhhhhhhch…