[ExI] mean old human

[spike]

Most of us have seen and marveled over what Boston Dymanics has done with
its biped bot:

 

http://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2016/2/24/11104892/mean-human-bullies-good-ro
bot-atlas-kind-benevolent-robots-all-hail-robots

 

I must say I am surprised at how it is being written up.  Our human instinct
is to feel sympathy for the robot being hassled.  I didn't think of that
when I first saw the video.  Being a controls guy I thought of it as putting
in an external random stimulus.  I talked to my mother today who saw the
video and was angered by the guy hazing the robot.  She thought the robot
eventually gave up on putting the box on the shelf and had walked out the
door in discouragement.  I explained that the last scene was an engineer's
sight gag, and yet another impressive display of what Boston Dynamics has
achieved.

 

It occurred to me that we could take one of these Boston Dynamics bipeds,
adapt it to the excellent Japanese emote-bots with the facial expressions,
the local companies working on hands, Asimo's expressive arm motions, and
have a device that plenty of people would relate to.

 

As robots become more human-like, perhaps our emotional instincts will be to
protect them when some yahoo is giving them an external random stimulus with
a hockey stick.

 

spike

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