It’s hard to shake of the feeling that those aren’t rendered. However, it’s also kind of sad that this amazing technology goes from one owner to another without a clear push into the real world.
The robots developed by ABB, KUKA, Mitsubishi and similars are very different to what Boston Dynamics is trying to build.
These are impressive robots but their utilitarian value is too low. An industrial robot by ABB with a clear use case in a manufacturing process costs like $80k. An impressive toy robot with no clear use case like Boston Dynamics’ Spot also costs $80k.
If these robots had a clear use case besides carrying heavy stuff, BD valuation would be 5X or 10X their current valuation.
Of course the real value would be to use their research and know-how on these type of high-mobility/low foot-footprint robotics into actual industrial settings and use cases.
Google didn’t have any internal use case for this tech and commercializing the technology as a vendor is way out of their competence and probably not enough value there to justify extra investment in sales, supply chain, etc.
SoftBank was just doing what it has been doing for the last decade which is investing in shiny things.
Hyundai may be the first owner to actually have a clear use case for this tech.
The dogs might be more usable, but even then modern conflicts are not really based on ground war. I don't think those have any significant value over a an actual drone.
Now a fleet of tiny quad-motor drones with a few bullets? That could work in high-density urban environment an quickly render guerilla warfare impossible. This project comes to mind: https://www.darpa.mil/program/offensive-swarm-enabled-tactic...
Depressingly accurate. Poor kids are far cheaper.
You want to be able to kill any leader anywhere and let the organization collapse due to internal power struggles. It's more fashionable.