Boston Dynamics
One of my favorite memes is the one that starts out like ‘1987: I bet in the future, cancer will be cured and we’ll all have flying cars’ and then it goes on to show some ridiculous headline from 2017 like ‘are PB&J sandwiches racist?’. I use that as an example because I saw that very meme yesterday.
When we’re inundated with fads like fidget spinners and dabbing, and the President of the United States is staring directly into a solar eclipse without protective eyewear, it’s pretty fucking easy to see how the present day doesn’t match up with most people’s idea of what ‘the future’ was supposed to look like. Then you see something like this: SpotMini. It is the latest robot from Boston Dynamics and it is proof that the future is now.
I want you to look closely at the dynamic range of motion on this robot. There was a time when all ‘robots‘ could do was roll forward/backward/sideways. The SpotMini robot from Boston Dynamics appears to the reflexes of a leopard:
This is the first video Boston Dynamics have uploaded to their YouTube channel in 8 months. They are one of most cutting-edge robotics companies in the world. The first SpotMini debuted over a year ago (June 23, 2016). Just look at how much progress they’ve made in the past 17 or so months:
These are both short videos but it’s pretty clear how Boston Dynamics has made leaps and bounds in the range of motion their robot has in the past year. I’m not yet entirely afraid of a robot uprising in the future, but if we keep making progress like this year after year then I can at least see a point in my lifetime when the threat of a ‘robots vs. humans’ war becomes real, can’t you?