For those of us who have seen the Terminator movies one too many times and are forever afraid of the inevitable robot takeover, fear not.
You will shortly see robots are nowhere near that level yet.
Meet Atlas, the robot, who is fostered by Boston Dynamics.
Atlas is a very capable humanlike robot shown here doing parkour, a kind of cross between an obstacle course and gymnastics.
Atlas can run, jump and flip of its own accord....sometimes.
At Boston Dynamics, crashes are part of the process. Discover what we do when robots break and learn how we take the opportunity to rebuild more robust robots. https://bit.ly/2WsZnGm\u00a0pic.twitter.com/bvauH1kV7x— Boston Dynamics (@Boston Dynamics) 1629908670
I mixed the Boston dynamics robot fails with the sound from The Office HARDCORE PARKOUR! @theofficetv @BostonDynamicspic.twitter.com/lDvmIGOZSl— BoboJenkinz (@BoboJenkinz) 1629656459
Some of the parkour fails of the robots turn on your sound on for this \n\nsource: Boston Dynamicspic.twitter.com/FKJfFxtJsr— M\u039bRC VID\u039bL (@M\u039bRC VID\u039bL) 1629991820
As Parkour is designed mostly for extremely fit humans, the robot no doubt had a little trouble, but the images of it just going down on its face are priceless.
But controls engineer Sean Mason said on Boston Dynamics' blog:
"For this team, watching the robot fail is one of the best parts. Every failure is seen as a chance to make the robot better and more robust."
Now make them do the milk crate challengehttps://twitter.com/bostondynamics/status/1430566765596119040\u00a0\u2026— MereKat (@MereKat) 1629983424
Feel bad for them when they fall :(https://twitter.com/bostondynamics/status/1430566765596119040\u00a0\u2026— Enlightened of Nod (@Enlightened of Nod) 1629980871
Stupid robots (I may regret this tweet)https://twitter.com/BostonDynamics/status/1430566765596119040\u00a0\u2026— Jason (@Jason) 1629975869
\u201cI have not failed. I\u2019ve just found 10,000 ways that won\u2019t work.\u201d\u00a0-\u00a0Thomas A. Edisonhttps://twitter.com/BostonDynamics/status/1430566765596119040\u00a0\u2026— Erin Bettenhausen (@Erin Bettenhausen) 1629975187
However, Atlas is still a remarkable feat of engineering.
"There are a lot of pretty exciting behaviors here, and some of them are not totally reliable yet," said Ben Stephens, the Atlas controls lead, on the Boston Dynamics blog.
"Every behavior here has a small chance of failure. It's almost 90 seconds of continuous jumping, jogging, turning, vaulting, and flipping, so those probabilities add up."
Like the crashes even more than when everything goes smooth.https://twitter.com/bostondynamics/status/1430566765596119040\u00a0\u2026— Mitsolud (@Mitsolud) 1629975020
I don't know about you but when they fall it's kinda funny to me I doubt Boston Dynamics would agree with me on that.https://twitter.com/BostonDynamics/status/1430566765596119040\u00a0\u2026— Chavid Carlson (@Chavid Carlson) 1629974591
Where's all the "they're gonna kill us all" people againhttps://twitter.com/BostonDynamics/status/1430566765596119040\u00a0\u2026— Delta Halo Control Room-core (@Delta Halo Control Room-core) 1629969806
They fall like humans! https://twitter.com/BostonDynamics/status/1430566765596119040\u00a0\u2026— Aishwarya Srinath (@Aishwarya Srinath) 1629967380
Atlas is a learning technology, so for every cute mistake we see it make, it learns more and more about that particular skill.
One day Atlas will likely have mastered plenty more basic skills.