Through the past decade we have seen a lot of developments in the area of robotics. Businesses started using robots instead of human employees which enhances the precision and efficiency in a lot of cases. But not only in businesses, we also introduce robots in our homes these days. Robot vacuum cleaners or robot lawn mowers started to get into our houses already a while ago, but nowadays we have robots helping elderly people with tasks or kitchen assistent robots which can be connected to kitchen appliances and teach you how to cook. Not even talking about Google home or Alexa. Overall, we see that robots are already changing our lives and that is not likely to change in the near future.
Yesterday, Boston Dynamics appeared in the news with their newest developments on the humanoid robot called Atlas. In 2013 this robot was barely able to walk (Etherington, 2019). However, in 6 years of development Boston Dynamics improved Atlas and the robot is now even able to practice gymnastics! If you are curious how that looks like, just watch the video I added in the post. Atlas’ motions are almost 100% human-like and has the capabilities to run and walk through rough terrain without getting out of balance (Etherington, 2019). Even if you push the robot it will manage to keeps its balance (Kettley, 2018). On the whole, the developments of Atlas show how far we already are in the world of robotics.
I can imagine that these new developments are really awesome to a lot of people, I think it is too! However, after reading about the capabilities of Atlas and watching the video I added here, I got a bit scared too. There is a point that robots get so human-like that we should ask ourselves whether we do good with it. These days we hear more often that when people take robots into their homes, things go wrong. “a South Korean woman was sleeping on the floor when her robot vacuum ate her hair, forcing her to call for emergency help” (Selinger and Hartzog, 2015). That was just one example, with technologies as AI robots are self-learning and people who do not fully understand how this works will start believing that these robots are real humans (Selinger and Hartzog, 2015). Besides, with robots with such human-like skills as Atlas the danger arises that people will be replaced by them, worst case in the army. As mentioned in Kettley (2018): “All jokes aside, the Government will eventually fully arm ad weaponise these to use against us”. If robots as Atlas get in the wrong hands we have a huge problem.
I think the developments in robotics are really important to improve many things in life. Especially in the medical area. However, it makes me also a bit scared to see the developments on robots as Atlas. I am curious what your thoughts are! Just leave a comment if you like.
Michaël Zwezerijn
September 25 2019
References
Kettley, S. (2018) Killer robots WARNING: New Boston Dynamics robots feel terrifyingly human-like. [online] Available at:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/960139/Robot-warning-Boston-Dynamics-Atlas-humanoid-artificial-intelligence [Accessed on 25th Sept. 2019]
Etherington, D. (2019) Atlas the humanoid robot shows off a new and improved gymnastics routine [online] Available at:
https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/24/atlas-the-humanoid-robot-shows-off-a-new-and-improved-gymnastics-routine/ [Accessed on 25th Sept. 2019]
Selinger, E., & Hartzog, W. (2015) The Dangers of Trusting Robots. [online] Available at:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150812-how-to-tell-a-good-robot-from-the-bad [Accessed on 25th Sept. 2019]
Hey Michael!
Thank you for this post! I thought the same as I watched this video. It is astonishing but at the same frightening. These robots can be very useful tools for humans, especially if it will be used in addition to human labor – I’m thinking of construction workers, law enforcement officers. Even if they are used for military purposes, I would rather risk a robot’s life than a humans life in a war zone. But this also means that humans will be more reckless, and with the current situation going on in Syria, I think if these robots get into the wrong hands we’ll experience a situation similar to I,Robot. So I hope the creators and owners of Atlas’s technology are aware of the consequences if they sell/ share this technology with the wrong people… But then again, who is good and bad???