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  • - Hi, I'm Russell and this is Spot.

  • (happy music)

  • So you've probably seen this robot before,

  • maybe hauling a truck

  • or dancing to Bruno Mars' "Uptown Funk."

  • And my band 'bout that money

  • Break it down

  • Girls hit your hallelujah

  • It's the first of this generation

  • of semi-autonomous, four-legged robots.

  • And it does a lot more than just make videos for the internet.

  • For about a month now,

  • Boston Dynamics has been putting Spot to work,

  • leasing units out to industry partners,

  • and seeing how this kind of robot holds up in the real world.

  • (happy mellow music)

  • When you're standing next to Spot,

  • the striking thing is how small and sturdy it is.

  • It's just under three feet high and weighs 70 pounds,

  • which means it's light enough

  • for a single person to pick up.

  • A lot of the movements you're seeing here

  • are remote controlled by an operator.

  • But Spot has a handful of basic skills

  • it can do automatically.

  • It knows how to climb stairs, how to avoid walls,

  • and even knows how to dance a little.

  • (funky music)

  • (heavy breathing)

  • Spot's not tired at all.

  • Of course, we've seen walking robots before,

  • but few of them had Spot's sense of balance.

  • Accelerometers tell Spot if it's moving,

  • and torque sensors in the joints

  • tell it exactly how its weight is distributed.

  • If Spot feels itself tipping forward,

  • a protocol kicks in, telling it to find surer foot.

  • It also has cameras on all four sides,

  • so it can see where to plant its foot.

  • Spot still can't tell the difference

  • between firm ground and loose dirt,

  • which means navigating these dirt piles

  • got a little chaotic.

  • When it does fall, there's a protocol for righting itself,

  • which works most of the time.

  • Although, it did need human assistance

  • when we flipped it into the bottom

  • of a particularly steep ditch.

  • The simplest way to use Spot is this controller,

  • which uses the same layout as an Xbox.

  • The left joystick moves Spot forward and back,

  • or strafes left and right,

  • while the right joystick spins it around.

  • You can also use the camera view to see what Spot is seeing,

  • and send it to specific waypoints.

  • Tap a spot on the screen,

  • and Spot will find a way to get there.

  • The controls are really easy to learn,

  • mostly because there isn't that much to control,

  • so much of it's automatic.

  • Within a couple of minutes,

  • I was able to send Spot wherever I wanted,

  • although it does stop at walls

  • because of the object sensor.

  • At the same time,

  • I didn't get the tight connection

  • that you do with video games or RC cars.

  • You can tell it's more designed for automation

  • than human pilots.

  • Boston Dynamics is hoping that a lot of the time,

  • Spot won't need a driver at all.

  • For more complicated tasks,

  • you can chain waypoints together,

  • sending Spot to retrace a path

  • it walked through earlier with human assistance.

  • That could mean checking all the gauges on an oil rig,

  • or taking LIDAR scans of a room

  • from a dozen specific points.

  • This version of Spot mostly knows how to navigate spaces,

  • but the plan is for it to carry more sophisticated tools

  • on its back, like a zoomable camera

  • or the claw it uses to open doors.

  • Industry partners can also build their own modules

  • for more specialized jobs.

  • Attach a methane detector module,

  • and Spot can check a whole facility for gas leaks.

  • Attach a LIDAR rig,

  • and Spot can make a 3D map

  • of a whole building from the inside.

  • It's a completely new way for computer programs

  • to interact with the physical world, automating tasks that would

  • otherwise be impossible to do without a human being.

  • There's also just straight-up entertainment.

  • It's really fun to watch this kind of robot

  • do these precise movements,

  • particularly if you have 10 or 15 of them in unison.

  • It's not hard to imagine 50 Spots

  • dancing Pikachu-style in a theme park.

  • Right now, Boston Dynamics has about 60 beta units.

  • That's the yellow guy you're seeing here,

  • but they've already started building the next generation,

  • which is what they're loaning out.

  • Eventually, they're hoping to have a thousand of them,

  • but right now there's only about 20 being leased out.

  • Now, Boston Dynamics wouldn't say

  • exactly what those bots are doing,

  • since most of the partnerships are still confidential.

  • They also didn't tell us exactly how much the robots cost,

  • since technically Spot isn't for sale.

  • All they've told us

  • is that the leases were in the range

  • of what you'd pay to lease a car, which doesn't say much.

  • One thing we have to talk about,

  • and there's really no other word for it, is the creepiness.

  • Some people get really freaked out by Spot.

  • It moves with a precision

  • that we don't see in the natural world.

  • And it stops dead still whenever it doesn't have a task,

  • which can be unsettling.

  • When you watch these videos,

  • there are all sorts of comments about how these robots

  • are going to rise up and destroy humanity.

  • There was even a Black Mirror episode about it.

  • But I didn't get that sense in person.

  • Really Spot doesn't recognize people at all.

  • For the robot, you're just an obstacle

  • that's too big to step on.

  • At the same time,

  • Boston Dynamics is really concerned about any situation

  • where Spot might end up harming a person.

  • Even if it's just getting your hand pinched

  • by one of the joints.

  • They also said that they didn't want to sell

  • to any clients who would use Spot to harm people,

  • or build weapons modules or anything like that,

  • which was good to hear.

  • Spot's great at climbing through piles of dirt,

  • but it doesn't have the social skills

  • to navigate big crowds.

  • And Boston Dynamics has a lot of work to do

  • before it can build those skills.

  • But that does mean that for now,

  • you're probably not going to see Spot anywhere

  • with lots of people around.

  • The company's thinking about construction sites,

  • oil rigs, maybe a few movie sets,

  • but those are all pretty tightly controlled spaces.

  • For now, Spot's really just a platform.

  • A stable base where partners can build new modules

  • and new software skills.

  • Once people start building on that platform,

  • Spot's going to get smarter fast,

  • and we may start seeing robots in places we never expected.

  • (robotic sounds)

- Hi, I'm Russell and this is Spot.

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