The coming robot zombie apocalypse of... Slapstick Comedy

princeofpounds

http://gizmodo.com/at-the-darpa-robotics-challenge-we-saw-a-lot-of-robots-1709545034#_ga=1.215566612.2029516078.1433667850

Clearly only those with a more observational style will keep their jobs.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Just shows how very difficult it is to get robots to function reliably in ways which resemble humans.

We've had walking bipedal robots for almost two decades now, and even at DARPA's 'World Cup' of robotics. many can't stay on their feet for long without falling over.

I continue to believe we'll see increasing automation over the coming decades, just as we have over the last few decades, but we're really not that much nearer 'robotising' every day jobs than we were back in the days Tomorrow's World first started talking about it on TV when I was a child.

Generali

That video really shouldn't be as funny as I found it.

Okay, perhaps the zombie robot apocalypse might be delayed for a few years.

antrobus

princeofpounds wrote: »

http://gizmodo.com/at-the-darpa-robotics-challenge-we-saw-a-lot-of-robots-1709545034#_ga=1.215566612.2029516078.1433667850

Clearly only those with a more observational style will keep their jobs.

Honda already have a robot that can walk, run, and even get up and down stairs without falling over.

I think it cane even dance and take penalties. Which is bordering on the useful.:)

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

antrobus wrote: »

Honda already have a robot that can walk, run, and even get up and down stairs

Asimo....

An immensely talented robot, as you'd expect from a company with the resources of Honda, that has been working on it for such a very long time.

But as for this bit...

without falling over.

Nope.

Even Asimo takes a tumble every now and again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvgLJTpoVc0

kabayiri

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

...

Nope.

Even Asimo takes a tumble every now and again.
...

That Asimo. He can't hold his [STRIKE]liquor[/STRIKE] WD40.

Broken_Biscuits

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Just shows how very difficult it is to get robots to function reliably in ways which resemble humans.

.

I was thinking the opposite.
It looked like shorts from a cctv show. The drunk would be burglar who falls over while picking the lock and who hasn't fallen out of a taxi at some point?

its shockingly realistic. Perhaps rather than designing robots to take our jobs they could look to doing our drinking for us. Hopefully they wont take both. I don't know how i would fill my time.

princeofpounds

Yes I think one of the reasons it is so funny is that some of the fails start to look almost human. Not that dissimilar to the local wino falling into the hedge.

I don't actually think it makes a lot of sense for the robots to be bipedal, I can only assume that is part of the rules of the contest.

They are improving quite rapidly though. We may have had superficially similar robots for quite some time, but when the critical technologies mature then we can still get an inflection point. Electric cars being a case in point.

antrobus

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

....Even Asimo takes a tumble every now and again....

I don't doubt it.

After all humans can get up and down stairs without falling over too. They still have a tumble every now and again. Crumbs, about 1,000 people manage to do so and get themselves killed in the UK every year.:)

antrobus

princeofpounds wrote: »

...I don't actually think it makes a lot of sense for the robots to be bipedal, I can only assume that is part of the rules of the contest.....

Ditto.

I imagine that Honda is trying to developing a bipedal robot in the same way as people try and get to the top of Very Big Mountains; just to show that it can be done.

But most of the things that humans do, and in particular most of the things that humans do that have an economic value, are accomplished by a human operating a machine; so you might as well cut out the middle man by robotising the machine itself, rather than the human operating it.

michaels

princeofpounds wrote: »

http://gizmodo.com/at-the-darpa-robotics-challenge-we-saw-a-lot-of-robots-1709545034#_ga=1.215566612.2029516078.1433667850

Clearly only those with a more observational style will keep their jobs.

Of course the conclusion is that we should send cheap expendable humans into dangers situations such as nuclear clean up and keeps robots and computers for the more high value cerebral, high detail tasks like surgery, making iphones, audis etc.