Boston Dynamics' New Robot Is a Giant Segway Bird that could further automate warehouses.

https://gizmodo.com/boston-dynamics-new-robot-is-a-giant-segway-bird-that-l-1833666944

Saw this on gizmodo and I thought I would post it here. There's more and more forms of automation in the world and I have a combination of fascination and horror with it. So what do you guys think of this thing? In theory it could help reduce the body strain that warehouse workers experience as a job hazard.

I wouldn't be able to resist the urge to kick one. Land a nice solid blow right on that counterweight. I bet it'd be funny to watch.

I've always found the Boston Dynamics robots somewhat creepy, for some reason.

As cool as that is, I wonder why they went with a two-wheeled design that is inherently unsteady. Wouldn't something on four (or even three) be better and cheaper?

Because this two wheel design looks effin rad. Am I right? :P

So... Goodbye to 50% of the warehouse workers Amazon has?

I'm impressed, but I'd be more impressed if it knew enough to move the pallet closer.

As someone who has worked in a warehouse as a picker, they're going to need to speed that thing up if they want it to compete with humans.

Benefit of not requiring breaks or limit to 8 hours shift will make up for that somewhat.

Breaks? 8 hour shifts? What are those? Lol.

Not everywhere is a union shop.

Oh I forgot. Places that doesn't allow slavery.

If I had to wager a guess, I'd propose range of motion. This design allows it to fairly easily reach the back of pallets while being overall smaller so that it can move between rows/pallets easier.

We're already using automated forklifts in some of our plants and warehouses for pallet movement. This type of multi-sku pallet building is the last leg of automating the vast bulk of grunt work in such locations. Pair this with a good WMS system that they've set up properly with a precise floor plan and sku locations (which most companies should already have as well as part of their ERP systems), and this thing can do a lot.

Good let the robots take the repetitive jobs I hope someday we get universal income work sucks unless it's a passion job.

I'm not sure how it work in the Star Trek universe but isn't money nonexistent there? Or something like that.

I imagine a world where we just do our hobbies for work, or serve for the betterment of humanity.

*Ah found an article:

“You have Captain Picard saying, ‘We’ve overcome hunger and greed, and we’re no longer interested in the accumulation of things.'”

Courtesy of Wired

Basically, people who want to advance can do so, but more so due to advancing their talents and abilities. No longer does wealth or status play a role. I long for this kind of society.

Robots "liberate humankind" as the article says. I imagine a coal miner no longer has to mine coal, but also no longer has to worry about paying a mortgage (because housing is plentiful), or purchasing food (because food distribution has been perfected), and so forth. Instead, the once-miner-of-coal can now do what he wishes. He can go fishing with his son, attend college. His son can go to school without fear of having to go into the coal mines himself.

And this isn't communism where there's no incentive to better one's self, or some dystopian nightmare where we are all crammed into glass cube apartments. It's just that what people need and to a lesser extent want is so readily available that they don't have to struggle for it. They can focus on legitimately important things.

If someone never had to worry about paying rent, never had to worry about minding a budget so they could afford groceries, never had to worry about medical bills, and so on and so forth...they would be unstoppable. They could simply do what they felt needed to be done.

@warmblur: You mean like the UBI that Andrew Yang is proposing?

More or less yeah.