A new video of the Army’s BigDog ‘bot highlights its eery abilities
advanced system of hyper-responsive hydraulic joints and a suite of sensors, accelerometers and gyroscopes, the BigDog’s most stunning achievement is it’s ability to walk, climb and maintain its balance on diverse terrain, even after slipping on ice or receiving a kick to one side. All while carrying several hundreds of pounds of supplies on its “back.”
The amount of real-time computation involved in something like this is staggering
if the YouTube comments are anything to say about it (“Shoot it. SHOOT IT!”), we humans may not be quite ready to accept such lifelike behavior coming from a machine.
Impressive! …yet, while “human may not be quite ready to accept such lifelike behavior coming from a machine” – I wonder on the “human like behavior” that needs DARPA and military justification to support such technology. maybe this is the tantalizing reflection of this project…
Yes it feels more than a bit creepy. The reason, I think, is because it presents a behavior which blurs the sharp distinction between machine and an a living organism. Blurring such distinction might feel awkward perhaps even threatening. Such machines and many others yet to come, will certainly challenge our perception and most basic attitudes.
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I remember watching that video a while ago, and my first thought when seeing it was “that’s kinda creepy.”
By: probabilityzero on July 26, 2008
at 11:59 pm
Yes it feels more than a bit creepy. The reason, I think, is because it presents a behavior which blurs the sharp distinction between machine and an a living organism. Blurring such distinction might feel awkward perhaps even threatening. Such machines and many others yet to come, will certainly challenge our perception and most basic attitudes.
By: Spaceweaver on July 27, 2008
at 9:02 pm