I really feel like people need to stop trying to make these sorts of robots look so "human-like". The effect of a mouthless bald doll head strapped on top of an iron man robot isn't exactly comforting, to me anyway. It starts to hit the uncanny valley a bit
I feel like the funny part is that there are so many "robot" mask designs in pop culture that would look 1000x more comforting than a slightly psychotic looking robotic doll
That's exactly my idea. I would feel far more comforted being rescued by something like Chappie or The Iron Legion than something like the Sophia robot or this thing. Human-inspired over human imitation
A similar type of robot is key to the plot of the superbly quirky film 'Brian and Charles' [0] in which a nutty inventor build a robot that looks exactly a weird old-man's head stuck on top of a washing-machine shaped body.
Presumably they want to eventually put a human inside it, in which case having a humanoid robot to work off of wouldn't change the aero calculations and designs too much. The article talks about specific design considerations to avoid the exhaust gases.
Gravity Industries already has that sorted https://gravity.co/ . I was almost expecting this robot to just be a humanoid robot with one of those suits on
> Presumably they want to eventually put a human inside it [..]
I'm imagining a team just putting the organs of a human into the robot to save on space. Basically a brain plus whatever is absolutely necessary to run the brain.
Obviously being able to fly a bipedal kill bot into a "war zone" and then use it for door-to-door fighting is something certain large organizations are looking for. The stupid baby mask is just to distract critics of kill bot tech.
Came here to say this. It appears 14 words into the article! I laughed out loud and immediately stopped reading. Write an article when their robot has "saved" at least one living thing and I'll pay attention. Until then it's just vapor. In the meantime I'll wear my downvotes with pride.
Can we please be honest with ourselves for a second and call out the ridiculousness of the "find a lost hiker" and "disaster relief" excuses used by kill-bot companies?
Who is this robot going to save with glowing hot turbine engines on it's fore-arms.
This is kill-bot tech put on the iCub to get articles in circulation.
If you truly wanted to do this, the Russia-Ukraine conflict has already proven that you can drop bombs via drones with pinpoint accuracy for dirt cheap.
If somebody's going to work on something a million times more the cost and a similar fractional multiple of the effectiveness, maybe you can take them at face value that they're not building a murderbot (at least not by design).
Yeah, it could find lost hikers, while starting multiple forest fires just by flying low to the ground.
Its hands are replaced by jets. This is not designed for rescue purposes nor would it be a good tool for rescue purposes.
It's being advertised as being used for generic disaster recovery, where it's beneficial to be human-shaped (human infrastructure is designed for humans, so its easier to interface with it if the robot is human-shaped too), so they just strapped some jets on it to take it to the disaster zone itself
>It's being advertised as being used for generic disaster recovery, where it's beneficial to be human-shaped (human infrastructure is designed for humans, so its easier to interface with it if the robot is human-shaped too)
Ummmm, disaster recovery is hard precisely because the infrastructure (e.g. a collapsed building) ceased to be suitable for humans.
This goes into my "Top 100 really dumb things I've seen this year" list. Not sure if it makes top ten. It's definitely in the top 25%.
OK. Why?
Let's forget then "Let's strap model airplane jet engines to the robot and make it fly." part.
For this dumb mechanical albatross to be anywhere close to useful in ANY scenario, even without flying...it has to be useful as a humanoid robot. It isn't. iCub was a cool concept, but it is so far behind the current state of the art I am not sure why they are trying to make it fly.
And, flying?
You can hang a humanoid from any of the already available mega quadcopters and drop it off anywhere within the flight range.
You can probably stick a parachute on an already available humanoid and drop dozens of them from an airplane.
Flying is a solved problem. A humanoid useful in the real world --particularly in disaster areas-- is not. At all.
https://gravity.co/ is a similar project that seems to be much more advanced, and also attaches to a real human body, rather than a nightmare doll head
It's also incredibly difficult to learn to use and to operate. The whole point of putting a robot in the cockpit is that it won't make mistakes humans will and thus be more fuel efficient (e.g., longer operation times).
Man, the carnage that will inevitably happen when someone pushes this thing too far. I suppose that’s true of many things (motorcycles), but this just terrifies me.
Readit News
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[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_and_Charles
I'm imagining a team just putting the organs of a human into the robot to save on space. Basically a brain plus whatever is absolutely necessary to run the brain.
Who is this robot going to save with glowing hot turbine engines on it's fore-arms.
This is kill-bot tech put on the iCub to get articles in circulation.
If somebody's going to work on something a million times more the cost and a similar fractional multiple of the effectiveness, maybe you can take them at face value that they're not building a murderbot (at least not by design).
I assure you that drone warfare isnt cutting down on any r&d budget at the pentagon. the whole point is to spend that money.
Freaky baby face value.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxyLui5LdCc
Ummmm, disaster recovery is hard precisely because the infrastructure (e.g. a collapsed building) ceased to be suitable for humans.
See the XKCD someone has already posted below.
I suppose the original iCub research robot is running out of grants it can milk, so they strapped some jet engines to it.
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OK. Why?
Let's forget then "Let's strap model airplane jet engines to the robot and make it fly." part.
For this dumb mechanical albatross to be anywhere close to useful in ANY scenario, even without flying...it has to be useful as a humanoid robot. It isn't. iCub was a cool concept, but it is so far behind the current state of the art I am not sure why they are trying to make it fly.
And, flying?
You can hang a humanoid from any of the already available mega quadcopters and drop it off anywhere within the flight range.
You can probably stick a parachute on an already available humanoid and drop dozens of them from an airplane.
Flying is a solved problem. A humanoid useful in the real world --particularly in disaster areas-- is not. At all.
At least if you can keep the weight down.