Boston Dynamics, the Google-owned company
that has creeped us out for years with four-legged
robots that move realistically, just graduated
to creeping us out with two-legged robots.
I’m being a little facetious. I mean, yes,
anything artificial that moves this naturally
evokes the uncanny valley. But the newest
version of Atlas, the bipedal ‘bot, represents
impressive steps forward in robotic balance,
all-terrain motion, and object manipulation.
It also, in my opinion, sounds 74% less like
a demon borne from a mechanical hellscape
than previous Boston Dynamics projects.
In humanity’s quest to design resilient,
useful robots, these are big engineering hurdles;
sometimes literal hurdles. Disasters like
the one at Fukushima have shown us that there’s
a very serious need for robots that can replace
fragile human responders
especially  during hazardous emergencies.
But these robots would need to cope with unknown
variables in real time: rubble, slick footing,
slopes and stairs, doors with differing handles,
and all kinds of objects and equipment that
might need to be moved or used. On the more
mundane side, any potential future consumer
‘bots that’ll help us work, play, and
get around will need similar skills, which
-- while simple for humans -- are ridiculously
difficult for robots. You see, your body is
a meat machine tuned precisely to deal with
these issues.
You have billions of nerves and trillions
of synapses processing data about the surface
you’re on, your spatial orientation, and
the 3-dimensional things around you. Robots
have to be painstakingly trained to handle
tasks that toddlers excel at. Even the terrific
teams who competed in DARPA’s Robotics Challenge
in 2015, several of whom programmed a previous
iteration of Atlas for participation,
found
that their best efforts didn’t always work as planned.
There are two important takeaways here. First,
that the Boston Dynamics team appears to have
created solutions to some of robotics’ most
complex motion problems, and those solutions
might have far-reaching applications in lots
of practical fields. The second takeway? That
it is someone’s real job to mess with robots.
So how do you feel about all of this? Let
us know what questions you have and what curiosities
all this has piqued. And to keep up with all
kinds of scientific advances, check in with
now.howstuffworks.com for more now - later.
