Look around you! With robot dogs patrolling law enforcement, Boston Dynamics is walking out of the laboratory, restoring a world like a “black mirror” to us. This article is from WeChat official account:Xinzhiyuan (ID: AI_era), source: BBC, editor: Xiaoyun, LRS, original title: “Hei Jing” is here! Boston Dynamics Robot Dog is on duty at the New York Police Department, jumping out of the street to enforce the law”, head picture from: Digidog

Are we living in a cyberpunk absurd world?

Recently, a scene like “Black Mirror” appeared!

On this day, the cameraman Daniel Valls was wandering in the street, and suddenly heard a commotion. His professional instincts allowed him to pick up the camera and record this absurd scene:

If you are there, you can hear a voice saying: “That thing is really scary!” Then, the robot passes by the camera.

This is a robot dog deployed by the police, named “Digidog.” Frank Dijaco of the Police Technical Rescue Response Team said, “This dog will save lives, protect people, and protect the police. Is our goal.”

A spokesperson for the New York Police Department said that this robot is in the testing phase, presumably to see if it is really useful in a remote state.

It seems that the Boston Dynamics robot is about to leave the laboratory.

Is the world ready?

New police officer Digidog? It takes a lot of time to join the police station

This 70-pound robot is in the testing phase. It is equipped with lights and cameras so that the police can “see” its surroundings in real time. In addition, it also has two-way Communication function.

The 70-pound “Digidog” can and climb stairs.

Actually, this is not the first time the New York Police Department has deployed a robot dog from Boston Dynamics.

The Massachusetts State Police is the first law enforcement agency in the United States to use the Boston Dynamics Spot robot dog. According to documents obtained by the ACLU, the Massachusetts Police Department’s bomb disposal team leased the Spot robot dog from Boston Dynamics for a three-month lease period starting in August and continuing through November.

The contract between the Massachusetts Police Department and Boston Dynamics was exposed

The document did not disclose the exact details of the use of the robot dog, but a spokesperson for the state police said that, like the robots of other departments in the bureau, Spot was used as a “mobile remote detection device”, providing suspicious to the police Images of the device or potentially dangerous locations, such as places where suspects carrying weapons might hide.

The Spot robot dog opened a door during the training of the Massachusetts State Police. This short video shows how can use robots to help humans get rid of harm in the case of terrorists or hostages.

In October last year, the department used another Spot to find a gunman who lost his mind and shot someone in the head during a parking dispute in Brooklyn and then locked himself in a building.

Spot has a paintball gun on his back? Boston Dynamics: This is “provocative use”!

However, Boston DynamicsIts omnipotence has also made it a worry for people.

Recently, in an art installation in a virtual art gallery in the United States, a robot dog Spot with a .68 caliber paintball gun was placed in it.

This is a project called “Spot Rampage”. People can “remotely control Spot robots” through a website.

Every two minutes, control is transferred to a new randomly selected user.

Paintball is very popular in Europe and the United States. The average muzzle kinetic energy when launching paintballs reaches 93 joules, which has exceeded the prescribed kinetic energy standards for human injuries(78 Joules).

Spot’s various parameters are listed in detail on the website, including a price of $74,500.

In this regard, Boston Dynamics is deeply concerned, that the use of robot dogs must not have any behavior that may harm humans.

“This provocative artistic behavior fundamentally distorts Spot’s guidelines for use and may have a bad impact on daily life.” He also called this a “provocative use” of Spot robots.

Although Boston Dynamics’ original research was funded by the military, it has been eager to keep a distance from the image because it began to offer its complex robotic products for sale.

In the company’s recent video, Spot showed more benign tasks, such as gardening, cleaning, and skipping.

Last year, the company has sold 400 Spot robots, which have been used in a range of industries such as construction, mining, nuclear power, and oil rigs.

Spot’s contract stipulates that it must be “used in accordance with the law and not to be used to harm or intimidate people or animals.”

Subsequently, this “art project” also came to an end. In the manifesto, the author stated, If I am willing to take the paintball gun from Spot, Boston Dynamics promised to give me two Spots for free. But it only makes me want to accomplish this more. If my Spot stops working, I know they have a back door to control the robot dog.

For this matter, Twitter netizens said they have something to say:

“Old Tie, I thought that when you gave the robot to the police and the army, you should know that this thing will be used for violence.”

“Please tell me directly that this is ironic, I can’t tell.”

This makes people think that the closed source of GPT2.0 is for world peace.

Boston Dynamics Advanced Road

There are not many robotics companies that are as popular as Boston Dynamics. Every time it shares a new lens of a robot dog, it will cause a sensation on the Internet.

A group of robot dogs are dragging a truck:

The world seems to be tilted towards cyberpunk. The important thing is, are we ready to let the machine walk among us?

Boston Dynamics was recently acquired by Hyundai Korea from SoftBank for US$1.1 billion. This is the third time it has changed ownership in seven years.

Boston Dynamics was originally a laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1992, the company became independent. After that, Boston Dynamics quickly became a well-known robot manufacturing company.

In a laboratory stage at MIT, it was known for its dog-like quadruped robot (the most famous is the United States BigDog, funded by DARPA, the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense, is the predecessor of the company’s first commercial robot Spot).

In 2013, the X department of Google’s parent company AlphabetAcquired by SoftBank in 2017. After being acquired by SoftBank, Boston Dynamics has been actively promoting the “commercialization” of its products. Prior to this, the company has focused on military and research robotics for 25 years.

Sometimes, Boston Dynamics is more like a “research institution” than a company, mass production of technologically advanced but “unprofitable” machines. This has a lot to do with its founder Mark Raibert(Marc Raibert).

Mark Raport is a typical “academic entrepreneur”. After obtaining his PhD from MIT, he founded the CMU leg laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University and served as an associate professor. In 1986, Mark Raport returned to MIT and continued to engage in robot development and research.

In 1986, Mark Raport returned to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to continue to engage in the development and research of robots.

The sale of Boston Dynamics is a turning point.

This company was separated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the early 1990s and operated independently. It was owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet in 2013 and is now owned by the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank.

Since becoming a part of SoftBank in 2017, Boston Dynamics has been actively promoting the commercialization of its products. Prior to this, the company has focused on military and robotics research for 25 years.