There’s been alot of buzz around the work being done at Boston Dynamics on robots. Previously there was their video of BigDog
And recently this clip has been getting alot of attention, of PETMAN:
I was alarmed when I first saw this video. I don’t imagine the scientists at Boston Dynamics are blind, and they can likely see a lot of uses for PETMAN besides testing clothing. (Watch the way the man pushes the robot to show stability, for example.) If anything, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it doing a similar support role that BigDog with the U.S. military. The first “man” into a fire fight would be PETMAN.
After being alarmed, my second thought was to think of the funders of this, namely DARPA. DARPA also was instrumental in the creation of the Internet, and needless to say, the first purpose of the Internet as DARPA saw it was not to be able to exchange cute pictures of cats on Facebook. But that is where we ended up. Likewise, I could see a similar thing happening with robots, and they could end up being domesticated, just like the Internet is. The robots will become appliances, just like all the other smart devices will be in our homes. (And very soon everything will be “smart”, be it your fridge, oven, washer, etc.) They will be an appliance that moves. They’ll carry in groceries. They’ll paint things. They’ll even vacuum. (Wait, we have that.). We’ll end up complaining that our robots are too old and can’t do the cleaning tasks that the brand new robots can.
Will robots be used in war? Of course. But if one soldier is accompanied by a PETMAN and his enemy is accompanied by heavy artillery, my money is on the enemy. They will still be effective in many ways, but like any weaponry, armies will adapt to meet the challenge.
Before I close, I want to add that this is a really under-reported story. There are lots of stories out about the latest mobile device or the latest laptop, but the rapid advancement of robotics in the 21st century is going to be a big deal.
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