Tag Archives: CEO

#439863 Q&A: Ghost Robotics CEO on Armed ...

Last week, the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) conference took place in Washington, D.C. One of the exhibitors was Ghost Robotics—we've previously covered their nimble and dynamic quadrupedal robots, which originated at the University of Pennsylvania with Minitaur in 2016. Since then, Ghost has developed larger, ruggedized “quadrupedal unmanned ground vehicles” (Q-UGVs) suitable for a variety of applications, one of which is military.

At AUSA, Ghost had a variety of its Vision 60 robots on display with a selection of defense-oriented payloads, including the system above, which is a remotely controlled rifle customized for the robot by a company called SWORD International.

The image of a futuristic-looking, potentially lethal weapon on a quadrupedal robot has generated some very strong reactions (the majority of them negative) in the media as well as on social media over the past few days. We recently spoke with Ghost Robotics' CEO Jiren Parikh to understand exactly what was being shown at AUSA, and to get his perspective on providing the military with armed autonomous robots.
IEEE Spectrum: Can you describe the level of autonomy that your robot has, as well as the level of autonomy that the payload has?

Jiren Parikh: It's critical to separate the two. The SPUR, or Special Purpose Unmanned Rifle from SWORD Defense, has no autonomy and no AI. It's triggered from a distance, and that has to be done by a human. There is always an operator in the loop. SWORD's customers include special operations teams worldwide, and when SWORD contacted us through a former special ops team member, the idea was to create a walking tripod proof of concept. They wanted a way of keeping the human who would otherwise have to pull the trigger at a distance from the weapon, to minimize the danger that they'd be in. We thought it was a great idea.
Our robot is also not autonomous. It's remotely operated with an operator in the loop. It does have perception for object avoidance for the environment because we need it to be able to walk around things and remain stable on unstructured terrain, and the operator has the ability to set GPS waypoints so it travels to a specific location. There's no targeting or weapons-related AI, and we have no intention of doing that. We support SWORD Defense like we do any other military, public safety or enterprise payload partner, and don't have any intention of selling weapons payloads.

Who is currently using your robots?
We have more than 20 worldwide government customers from various agencies, US and allied, who abide by very strict rules. You can see it and feel it when you talk to any of these agencies; they are not pro-autonomous weapons. I think they also recognize that they have to be careful about what they introduce. The vast majority of our customers are using them or developing applications for CBRNE [Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosives detection], reconnaissance, target acquisition, confined space and subterranean inspection, mapping, EOD safety, wireless mesh networks, perimeter security and other applications where they want a better option than tracked and wheeled robots that are less agile and capable.

We also have agencies that do work where we are not privy to details. We sell them our robot and they can use it with any software, any radio, and any payload, and the folks that are using these systems, they're probably special teams, WMD and CBRN units and other special units doing confidential or classified operations in remote locations. We can only assume that a lot of our customers are doing really difficult, dangerous work. And remember that these are men and women who can't talk about what they do, with families who are under constant stress. So all we're trying to do is allow them to use our robot in military and other government agency applications to keep our people from getting hurt. That's what we promote. And if it's a weapon that they need to put on our robot to do their job, we're happy for them to do that. No different than any other dual use technology company that sells to defense or other government agencies.
How is what Ghost Robotics had on display at AUSA functionally different from other armed robotic platforms that have been around for well over a decade?

Decades ago, we had guided missiles, which are basically robots with weapons on them. People don't consider it a robot, but that's what it is. More recently, there have been drones and ground robots with weapons on them. But they didn't have legs, and they're not invoking this evolutionary memory of predators. And now add science fiction movies and social media to that, which we have no control over—the challenge for us is that legged robots are fascinating, and science fiction has made them scary. So I think we're going to have to socialize these kinds of legged systems over the next five to ten years in small steps, and hopefully people get used to them and understand the benefits for our soldiers. But we know it can be frightening. We also have families, and we think about these things as well.

“If our robot had tracks on it instead of legs, nobody would be paying attention.”
—Jiren Parikh
Are you concerned that showing legged robots with weapons will further amplify this perception problem, and make people less likely to accept them?
In the short term, weeks or months, yes. I think if you're talking about a year or two, no. We will get used to these robots just like armed drones, they just have to be socialized. If our robot had tracks on it instead of legs, nobody would be paying attention. We just have to get used to robots with legs.

More broadly, how does Ghost Robotics think armed robots should or should not be used?

I think there is a critical place for these robots in the military. Our military is here to protect us, and there are servicemen and women who are putting their lives on the line everyday to protect the United States and allies. I do not want them to lack for our robot with whatever payload, including weapons systems, if they need it to do their job and keep us safe. And if we've saved one life because these people had our robot when they needed it, I think that's something to be proud of.

I'll tell you personally: until I joined Ghost Robotics, I was oblivious to the amount of stress and turmoil and pain our servicemen and women go through to protect us. Some of the special operations folks that we talk to, they can't disclose what they do, but you can feel it when they talk about their colleagues and comrades that they've lost. The amount of energy that's put into protecting us by these people that we don't even know is really amazing, and we take it for granted.

What about in the context of police rather than the military?

I don't see that happening. We've just started talking with law enforcement, but we haven't had any inquiries on weapons. It's been hazmat, CBRNE, recon of confined spaces and crime scenes or sending robots in to talk with people that are barricaded or involved in a hostage situation. I don't think you're going to see the police using weaponized robots. In other countries, it's certainly possible, but I believe that it won't happen here. We live in a country where our military is run by a very strict set of rules, and we have this political and civilian backstop on how engagements should be conducted with new technologies.

How do you feel about the push for regulation of lethal autonomous weapons?

We're all for regulation. We're all for it. This is something everybody should be for right now. What those regulations are, what you can or can't do and how AI is deployed, I think that's for politicians and the armed services to decide. The question is whether the rest of the world will abide by it, and so we have to be realistic and we have to be ready to support defending ourselves against rogue nations or terrorist organizations that feel differently. Sticking your head in the sand is not the solution.

Based on the response that you've experienced over the past several days, will you be doing anything differently going forward?

We're very committed to what we're doing, and our team here understands our mission. We're not going to be reactive. And we're going to stick by our commitment to our US and allied government customers. We're going to help them do whatever they need to do, with whatever payload they need, to do their job, and do it safely. We are very fortunate to live in a country where the use of military force is a last resort, and the use of new technologies and weapons takes years and involves considerable deliberation from the armed services with civilian oversight. Continue reading

Posted in Human Robots

#439070 Are Digital Humans the Next Step in ...

In the fictional worlds of film and TV, artificial intelligence has been depicted as so advanced that it is indistinguishable from humans. But what if we’re actually getting closer to a world where AI is capable of thinking and feeling?

Tech company UneeQ is embarking on that journey with its “digital humans.” These avatars act as visual interfaces for customer service chatbots, virtual assistants, and other applications. UneeQ’s digital humans appear lifelike not only in terms of language and tone of voice, but also because of facial movements: raised eyebrows, a tilt of the head, a smile, even a wink. They transform a transaction into an interaction: creepy yet astonishing, human, but not quite.

What lies beneath UneeQ’s digital humans? Their 3D faces are modeled on actual human features. Speech recognition enables the avatar to understand what a person is saying, and natural language processing is used to craft a response. Before the avatar utters a word, specific emotions and facial expressions are encoded within the response.

UneeQ may be part of a larger trend towards humanizing computing. ObEN’s digital avatars serve as virtual identities for celebrities, influencers, gaming characters, and other entities in the media and entertainment industry. Meanwhile, Soul Machines is taking a more biological approach, with a “digital brain” that simulates aspects of the human brain to modulate the emotions “felt” and “expressed” by its “digital people.” Amelia is employing a similar methodology in building its “digital employees.” It emulates parts of the brain involved with memory to respond to queries and, with each interaction, learns to deliver more engaging and personalized experiences.

Shiwali Mohan, an AI systems scientist at the Palo Alto Research Center, is skeptical of these digital beings. “They’re humanlike in their looks and the way they sound, but that in itself is not being human,” she says. “Being human is also how you think, how you approach problems, and how you break them down; and that takes a lot of algorithmic design. Designing for human-level intelligence is a different endeavor than designing graphics that behave like humans. If you think about the problems we’re trying to design these avatars for, we might not need something that looks like a human—it may not even be the right solution path.”

And even if these avatars appear near-human, they still evoke an uncanny valley feeling. “If something looks like a human, we have high expectations of them, but they might behave differently in ways that humans just instinctively know how other humans react. These differences give rise to the uncanny valley feeling,” says Mohan.

Yet the demand is there, with Amelia seeing high adoption of its digital employees across the financial, health care, and retail sectors. “We find that banks and insurance companies, which are so risk-averse, are leading the adoption of such disruptive technologies because they understand that the risk of non-adoption is much greater than the risk of early adoption,” says Chetan Dube, Amelia’s CEO. “Unless they innovate their business models and make them much more efficient digitally, they might be left behind.” Dube adds that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated adoption of digital employees in health care and retail as well.

Amelia, Soul Machines, and UneeQ are taking their digital beings a step further, enabling organizations to create avatars themselves using low-code or no-code platforms: Digital Employee Builder for Amelia, Creator for UneeQ, and Digital DNA Studio for Soul Machines. Unreal Engine, a game engine developed by Epic Games, is doing the same with MetaHuman Creator, a tool that allows anyone to create photorealistic digital humans. “The biggest motivation for Digital Employee Builder is to democratize AI,” Dube says.

Mohan is cautious about this approach. “AI has problems with bias creeping in from data sets and into the way it speaks. The AI community is still trying to figure out how to measure and counter that bias,” she says. “[Companies] have to have an AI expert on board that can recommend the right things to build for.”

Despite being wary of the technology, Mohan supports the purpose behind these virtual beings and is optimistic about where they’re headed. “We do need these tools that support humans in different kinds of things. I think the vision is the pro, and I’m behind that vision,” she says. “As we develop more sophisticated AI technology, we would then have to implement novel ways of interacting with that technology. Hopefully, all of that is designed to support humans in their goals.” Continue reading

Posted in Human Robots

#438886 This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From ...

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
This Chip for AI Works Using Light, Not Electrons
Will Knight | Wired
“As demand for artificial intelligence grows, so does hunger for the computer power needed to keep AI running. Lightmatter, a startup born at MIT, is betting that AI’s voracious hunger will spawn demand for a fundamentally different kind of computer chip—one that uses light to perform key calculations. ‘Either we invent new kinds of computers to continue,’ says Lightmatter CEO Nick Harris, ‘or AI slows down.’i”

BIOTECH
With This CAD for Genomes, You Can Design New Organisms
Eliza Strickland | IEEE Spectrum
“Imagine being able to design a new organism as easily as you can design a new integrated circuit. That’s the ultimate vision behind the computer-aided design (CAD) program being developed by the GP-write consortium. ‘We’re taking the same things we’d do for design automation in electronics, and applying them to biology,’ says Doug Densmore, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Boston University.”

BIOLOGY
Hey, So These Sea Slugs Decapitate Themselves and Grow New Bodies
Matt Simon | Wired
“That’s right: It pulled a Deadpool. Just a few hours after its self-decapitation, the head began dragging itself around to feed. After a day, the neck wound had closed. After a week, it started to regenerate a heart. In less than a month, the whole body had grown back, and the disembodied slug was embodied once more.”

INTERNET
Move Over, Deep Nostalgia, This AI App Can Make Kim Jong-un Sing ‘I Will Survive’
Helen Sullivan | The Guardian
“If you’ve ever wanted to know what it might be like to see Kim Jong-un let loose at karaoke, your wish has been granted, thanks to an app that lets users turn photographs of anyone—or anything remotely resembling a face—into uncanny AI-powered videos of them lip syncing famous songs.”

ENERGY
GM Unveils Plans for Lithium-Metal Batteries That Could Boost EV Range
Steve Dent | Engadget
“GM has released more details about its next-generation Ultium batteries, including plans for lithium-metal (Li-metal) technology to boost performance and energy density. The automaker announced that it has signed an agreement to work with SolidEnergy Systems (SES), an MIT spinoff developing prototype Li-metal batteries with nearly double the capacity of current lithium-ion cells.”

TECHNOLOGY
Xi’s Gambit: China Plans for a World Without American Technology
Paul Mozur and Steven Lee Myers | The New York Times
“China is freeing up tens of billions of dollars for its tech industry to borrow. It is cataloging the sectors where the United States or others could cut off access to crucial technologies. And when its leaders released their most important economic plans last week, they laid out their ambitions to become an innovation superpower beholden to none.”

SCIENCE
Imaginary Numbers May Be Essential for Describing Reality
Charlie Wood | Wired
“…physicists may have just shown for the first time that imaginary numbers are, in a sense, real. A group of quantum theorists designed an experiment whose outcome depends on whether nature has an imaginary side. Provided that quantum mechanics is correct—an assumption few would quibble with—the team’s argument essentially guarantees that complex numbers are an unavoidable part of our description of the physical universe.”

PHILOSOPHY
What Is Life? Its Vast Diversity Defies Easy Definition
Carl Zimmer | Quanta
“i‘It is commonly said,’ the scientists Frances Westall and André Brack wrote in 2018, ‘that there are as many definitions of life as there are people trying to define it.’ …As an observer of science and of scientists, I find this behavior strange. It is as if astronomers kept coming up with new ways to define stars. …With scientists adrift in an ocean of definitions, philosophers rowed out to offer lifelines.”

Image Credit: Kir Simakov / Unsplash Continue reading

Posted in Human Robots

#438762 When Robots Enter the World, Who Is ...

Over the last half decade or so, the commercialization of autonomous robots that can operate outside of structured environments has dramatically increased. But this relatively new transition of robotic technologies from research projects to commercial products comes with its share of challenges, many of which relate to the rapidly increasing visibility that these robots have in society.

Whether it's because of their appearance of agency, or because of their history in popular culture, robots frequently inspire people’s imagination. Sometimes this is a good thing, like when it leads to innovative new use cases. And sometimes this is a bad thing, like when it leads to use cases that could be classified as irresponsible or unethical. Can the people selling robots do anything about the latter? And even if they can, should they?

Roboticists understand that robots, fundamentally, are tools. We build them, we program them, and even the autonomous ones are just following the instructions that we’ve coded into them. However, that same appearance of agency that makes robots so compelling means that it may not be clear to people without much experience with or exposure to real robots that a robot itself isn’t inherently good or bad—rather, as a tool, a robot is a reflection of its designers and users.

This can put robotics companies into a difficult position. When they sell a robot to someone, that person can, hypothetically, use the robot in any way they want. Of course, this is the case with every tool, but it’s the autonomous aspect that makes robots unique. I would argue that autonomy brings with it an implied association between a robot and its maker, or in this case, the company that develops and sells it. I’m not saying that this association is necessarily a reasonable one, but I think that it exists, even if that robot has been sold to someone else who has assumed full control over everything it does.

“All of our buyers, without exception, must agree that Spot will not be used to harm or intimidate people or animals, as a weapon or configured to hold a weapon”
—Robert Playter, Boston Dynamics

Robotics companies are certainly aware of this, because many of them are very careful about who they sell their robots to, and very explicit about what they want their robots to be doing. But once a robot is out in the wild, as it were, how far should that responsibility extend? And realistically, how far can it extend? Should robotics companies be held accountable for what their robots do in the world, or should we accept that once a robot is sold to someone else, responsibility is transferred as well? And what can be done if a robot is being used in an irresponsible or unethical way that could have a negative impact on the robotics community?

For perspective on this, we contacted folks from three different robotics companies, each of which has experience selling distinctive mobile robots to commercial end users. We asked them the same five questions about the responsibility that robotics companies have regarding the robots that they sell, and here’s what they had to say:

Do you have any restrictions on what people can do with your robots? If so, what are they, and if not, why not?

Péter Fankhauser, CEO, ANYbotics:

We closely work together with our customers to make sure that our solution provides the right approach for their problem. Thereby, the target use case is clear from the beginning and we do not work with customers interested in using our robot ANYmal outside the intended target applications. Specifically, we strictly exclude any military or weaponized uses and since the foundation of ANYbotics it is close to our heart to make human work easier, safer, and more enjoyable.

Robert Playter, CEO, Boston Dynamics:

Yes, we have restrictions on what people can do with our robots, which are outlined in our Terms and Conditions of Sale. All of our buyers, without exception, must agree that Spot will not be used to harm or intimidate people or animals, as a weapon or configured to hold a weapon. Spot, just like any product, must be used in compliance with the law.

Ryan Gariepy, CTO, Clearpath Robotics:

We do have strict restrictions and KYC processes which are based primarily on Canadian export control regulations. They depend on the type of equipment sold as well as where it is going. More generally, we also will not sell or support a robot if we know that it will create an uncontrolled safety hazard or if we have reason to believe that the buyer is unqualified to use the product. And, as always, we do not support using our products for the development of fully autonomous weapons systems.

More broadly, if you sell someone a robot, why should they be restricted in what they can do with it?
Péter Fankhauser, ANYbotics: We see the robot less as a simple object but more as an artificial workforce. This implies to us that the usage is closely coupled with the transfer of the robot and both the customer and the provider agree what the robot is expected to do. This approach is supported by what we hear from our customers with an increasing interest to pay for the robots as a service or per use.

Robert Playter, Boston Dynamics: We’re offering a product for sale. We’re going to do the best we can to stop bad actors from using our technology for harm, but we don’t have the control to regulate every use. That said, we believe that our business will be best served if our technology is used for peaceful purposes—to work alongside people as trusted assistants and remove them from harm’s way. We do not want to see our technology used to cause harm or promote violence. Our restrictions are similar to those of other manufacturers or technology companies that take steps to reduce or eliminate the violent or unlawful use of their products.

Ryan Gariepy, Clearpath Robotics: Assuming the organization doing the restricting is a private organization and the robot and its software is sold vs. leased or “managed,” there aren't strong legal reasons to restrict use. That being said, the manufacturer likewise has no obligation to continue supporting that specific robot or customer going forward. However, given that we are only at the very edge of how robots will reshape a great deal of society, it is in the best interest for the manufacturer and user to be honest with each other about their respective goals. Right now, you're not only investing in the initial purchase and relationship, you're investing in the promise of how you can help each other succeed in the future.

“If a robot is being used in a way that is irresponsible due to safety: intervene! If it’s unethical: speak up!”
—Péter Fankhauser, ANYbotics

What can you realistically do to make sure that people who buy your robots use them in the ways that you intend?
Péter Fankhauser, ANYbotics: We maintain a close collaboration with our customers to ensure their success with our solution. So for us, we have refrained from technical solutions to block unintended use.

Robert Playter, Boston Dynamics: We vet our customers to make sure that their desired applications are things that Spot can support, and are in alignment with our Terms and Conditions of Sale. We’ve turned away customers whose applications aren’t a good match with our technology. If customers misuse our technology, we’re clear in our Terms of Sale that their violations may void our warranty and prevent their robots from being updated, serviced, repaired, or replaced. We may also repossess robots that are not purchased, but leased. Finally, we will refuse future sales to customers that violate our Terms of Sale.

Ryan Gariepy, Clearpath Robotics: We typically work with our clients ahead of the purchase to make sure their expectations match reality, in particular on aspects like safety, supervisory requirements, and usability. It's far worse to sell a robot that'll sit on a shelf or worse, cause harm, then to not sell a robot at all, so we prefer to reduce the risk of this situation in advance of receiving an order or shipping a robot.

How do you evaluate the merit of edge cases, for example if someone wants to use your robot in research or art that may push the boundaries of what you personally think is responsible or ethical?
Péter Fankhauser, ANYbotics: It’s about the dialog, understanding, and figuring out alternatives that work for all involved parties and the earlier you can have this dialog the better.

Robert Playter, Boston Dynamics: There’s a clear line between exploring robots in research and art, and using the robot for violent or illegal purposes.

Ryan Gariepy, Clearpath Robotics: We have sold thousands of robots to hundreds of clients, and I do not recall the last situation that was not covered by a combination of export control and a general evaluation of the client's goals and expectations. I'm sure this will change as robots continue to drop in price and increase in flexibility and usability.

“You're not only investing in the initial purchase and relationship, you're investing in the promise of how you can help each other succeed in the future.”
—Ryan Gariepy, Clearpath Robotics

What should roboticists do if we see a robot being used in a way that we feel is unethical or irresponsible?
Péter Fankhauser, ANYbotics: If it’s irresponsible due to safety: intervene! If it’s unethical: speak up!

Robert Playter, Boston Dynamics: We want robots to be beneficial for humanity, which includes the notion of not causing harm. As an industry, we think robots will achieve long-term commercial viability only if people see robots as helpful, beneficial tools without worrying if they’re going to cause harm.

Ryan Gariepy, Clearpath Robotics: On a one off basis, they should speak to a combination of the user, the supplier or suppliers, the media, and, if safety is an immediate concern, regulatory or government agencies. If the situation in question risks becoming commonplace and is not being taken seriously, they should speak up more generally in appropriate forums—conferences, industry groups, standards bodies, and the like.

As more and more robots representing different capabilities become commercially available, these issues are likely to come up more frequently. The three companies we talked to certainly don’t represent every viewpoint, and we did reach out to other companies who declined to comment. But I would think (I would hope?) that everyone in the robotics community can agree that robots should be used in a way that makes people’s lives better. What “better” means in the context of art and research and even robots in the military may not always be easy to define, and inevitably there’ll be disagreement as to what is ethical and responsible, and what isn’t.

We’ll keep on talking about it, though, and do our best to help the robotics community to continue growing and evolving in a positive way. Let us know what you think in the comments. Continue reading

Posted in Human Robots

#438080 Boston Dynamics’ Spot Robot Is Now ...

Boston Dynamics has been working on an arm for its Spot quadruped for at least five years now. There have been plenty of teasers along the way, including this 45-second clip from early 2018 of Spot using its arm to open a door, which at 85 million views seems to be Boston Dynamics’ most popular video ever by a huge margin. Obviously, there’s a substantial amount of interest in turning Spot from a highly dynamic but mostly passive sensor platform into a mobile manipulator that can interact with its environment.

As anyone who’s done mobile manipulation will tell you, actually building an arm is just the first step—the really tricky part is getting that arm to do exactly what you want it to do. In particular, Spot’s arm needs to be able to interact with the world with some amount of autonomy in order to be commercially useful, because you can’t expect a human (remote or otherwise) to spend all their time positioning individual joints or whatever to pick something up. So the real question about this arm is whether Boston Dynamics has managed to get it to a point where it’s autonomous enough that users with relatively little robotics experience will be able to get it to do useful tasks without driving themselves nuts.

Today, Boston Dynamics is announcing commercial availability of the Spot arm, along with some improved software called Scout plus a self-charging dock that’ll give the robot even more independence. And to figure out exactly what Spot’s new arm can do, we spoke with Zachary Jackowski, Spot Chief Engineer at Boston Dynamics.

Although Boston Dynamics’ focus has been on dynamic mobility and legged robots, the company has been working on manipulation for a very long time. We first saw an arm prototype on an early iteration of Spot in 2016, where it demonstrated some impressive functionality, including loading a dishwasher and fetching a beer in a way that only resulted in a minor catastrophe. But we’re guessing that Spot’s arm can trace its history back to BigDog’s crazy powerful hydraulic face-arm, which was causing mayhem with cinder blocks back in 2013:

Spot’s arm is not quite that powerful (it has to drag cinder blocks along the ground rather than fling them into space), but you can certainly see the resemblance. Here’s the video that Boston Dynamics posted yesterday to introduce Spot’s new arm:

A couple of things jumped out from this video right away. First, Spot is doing whole body manipulation with its arm, as opposed to just acting as a four-legged base that brings the arm where it needs to go. Planning looks to be very tightly integrated, such that if you ask the robot to manipulate an object, its arm, legs, and torso all work together to optimize that manipulation. Also, when Spot flips that electrical switch, you see the robot successfully grasp the switch, and then reposition its body in a way that looks like it provides better leverage for the flip, which is a neat trick. It looks like it may be able to use the strength of its legs to augment the strength of its arm, as when it’s dragging the cinder block around, which is surely an homage to BigDog. The digging of a hole is particularly impressive. But again, the real question is how much of this is autonomous or semi-autonomous in a way that will be commercially useful?

Before we get to our interview with Spot Chief Engineer Zack Jackowski, it’s worth watching one more video that Boston Dynamics shared with us:

This is notable because Spot is opening a door that’s not ADA compliant, and the robot is doing it with a simple two-finger gripper. Most robots you see interacting with doors rely on ADA compliant hardware, meaning (among other things) a handle that can be pushed rather than a knob that has to be twisted, because it’s much more challenging for a robot to grasp and twist a smooth round door knob than it is to just kinda bash down on a handle. That capability, combined with Spot being able to pass through a spring-loaded door, potentially opens up a much wider array of human environments to the robot, and that’s where we started our conversation with Jackowski.

IEEE Spectrum: At what point did you decide that for Spot’s arm to be useful, it had to be able to handle round door knobs?

Zachary Jackowski: We're like a lot of roboticists, where someone in a meeting about manipulation would say “it's time for the round doorknob” and people would start groaning a little bit. But the reality is that, in order to make a robot useful, you have to engage with the environments that users have. Spot’s arm uses a very simple gripper—it’s a one degree of freedom gripper, but a ton of thought has gone into all of the fine geometric contours of it such that it can grab that ADA compliant lever handle, and it’ll also do an enclosing grasp around a round door knob. The major point of a robot like Spot is to engage with the environment you have, and so you can’t cut out stuff like round door knobs.

We're thrilled to be launching the arm and getting it out with users and to have them start telling us what doors it works really well on, and what they're having trouble with. And we're going to be working on rapidly improving all this stuff. We went through a few campaigns of like, “this isn’t ready until we can open every single door at Boston Dynamics!” But every single door at Boston Dynamics and at our test lab is a small fraction of all the doors in the world. So we're prepared to learn a lot this year.

When we see Spot open a door, or when it does those other manipulation behaviors in the launch video, how much of that is autonomous, how much is scripted, and to what extent is there a human in the loop?

All of the scenes where the robot does a pick, like the snow scene or the laundry scene, that is actually an almost fully integrated autonomous behavior that has a bit of a script wrapped around it. We trained a detector for an object, and the robot is identifying that object in the environment, picking it, and putting it in the bin all autonomously. The scripted part of that is telling the robot to perform a series of picks.

One of the things that we’re excited about, and that roboticists have been excited about going back probably all the way to the DRC, is semi-autonomous manipulation. And so we have modes built into the interface where if you see an object that you want the robot to grab, all you have to do is tap that object on the screen, and the robot will walk up to it, use the depth camera in its gripper to capture a depth map, and plan a grasp on its own in real time. That’s all built-in, too.

The jump rope—robots don’t just go and jump rope on their own. We scripted an arm motion to move the rope, and wrote a script using our API to coordinate all three robots. Drawing “Boston Dynamics” in chalk in our parking lot was scripted also. One of our engineers wrote a really cool G-code interpreter that vectorizes graphics so that Spot can draw them.

So for an end user, if you wanted Spot to autonomously flip some switches for you, you’d just have to train Spot on your switches, and then Spot could autonomously perform the task?

There are a couple of ways that task could break down depending on how you’re interfacing with the robot. If you’re a tablet user, you’d probably just identify the switch yourself on the tablet’s screen, and the robot will figure out the grasp, and grasp it. Then you’ll enter a constrained manipulation mode on the tablet, and the robot will be able to actuate the switch. But the robot will take care of the complicated controls aspects, like figuring out how hard it has to pull, the center of rotation of the switch, and so on.

The video of Spot digging was pretty cool—how did that work?

That’s mostly a scripted behavior. There are some really interesting control systems topics in there, like how you’d actually do the right kinds of force control while you insert the trowel into the dirt, and how to maintain robot stability while you do it. The higher level task of how to make a good hole in the dirt—that’s scripted. But the part of the problem that’s actually digging, you need the right control system to actually do that, or you’ll dig your trowel into the ground and flip your robot over.

The last time we saw Boston Dynamics robots flipping switches and turning valves I think might have been during the DRC in 2015, when they had expert robot operators with control over every degree of freedom. How are things different now with Spot, and will non-experts in the commercial space really be able to get the robot to do useful tasks?

A lot of the things, like “pick the stuff up in the room,” or ‘turn that switch,” can all be done by a lightly trained operator using just the tablet interface. If you want to actually command all of Spot’s arm degrees of freedom, you can do that— not through the tablet, but the API does expose all of it. That’s actually a notable difference from the base robot; we’ve never opened up the part of the API that lets you command individual leg degrees of freedom, because we don’t think it’s productive for someone to do that. The arm is a little bit different. There are a lot of smart people working on arm motion planning algorithms, and maybe you want to plan your arm trajectory in a super precise way and then do a DRC-style interface where you click to approve it. You can do all that through the API if you want, but fundamentally, it’s also user friendly. It follows our general API design philosophy of giving you the highest level pieces of the toolbox that will enable you to solve a complex problem that we haven't thought of.

Looking back on it now, it’s really cool to see, after so many years, robots do the stuff that Gill Pratt was excited about kicking off with the DRC. And now it’s just a thing you can buy.

Is Spot’s arm safe?

You should follow the same safety rules that you’d follow when working with Spot normally, and that’s that you shouldn’t get within two meters of the robot when it’s powered on. Spot is not a cobot. You shouldn’t hug it. Fundamentally, the places where the robot is the most valuable are places where people don’t want to be, or shouldn’t be.

We’ve seen how people reacted to earlier videos of Spot using its arm—can you help us set some reasonable expectations for what this means for Spot?

You know, it gets right back to the normal assumptions about our robots that people make that aren’t quite reality. All of this manipulation work we’re doing— the robot’s really acting as a tool. Even if it’s an autonomous behavior, it’s a tool. The robot is digging a hole because it’s got a set of instructions that say “apply this much force over this much distance here, here, and here.”

It’s not digging a hole and planting a tree because it loves trees, as much as I’d love to build a robot that works like that.

Photo: Boston Dynamics

There isn’t too much to say about the dock, except that it’s a requirement for making Spot long-term autonomous. The uncomfortable looking charging contacts that Spot impales itself on also include hardwired network connectivity, which is important because Spot often comes back home with a huge amount of data that all needs to be offloaded and processed. Docking and undocking are autonomous— as soon as the robot sees the fiducial markers on the dock, auto docking is enabled and it takes one click to settle the robot down.

During a brief remote demo, we also learned some other interesting things about Spot’s updated remote interface. It’s very latency tolerant, since you don’t have to drive the robot directly (although you can if you want to). Click a point on the camera view and Spot will move there autonomously while avoiding obstacles, meaning that even if you’re dealing with seconds of lag, the robot will continue making safe progress. This will be especially important if (when?) Spot starts exploring the Moon.

The remote interface also has an option to adjust how close Spot can get to obstacles, or to turn the obstacle avoidance off altogether. The latter functionality is useful if Spot sees something as an obstacle that really isn’t, like a curtain, while the former is useful if the robot is operating in an environment where it needs to give an especially wide berth to objects that could be dangerous to run into. “The robot’s not perfect—robots will never be perfect,” Jackowski reminds us, which is something we really (seriously) appreciate hearing from folks working on powerful, dynamic robots. “No matter how good the robot is, you should always de-risk as much as possible.”

Another part of that de-risking is having the user let Spot know when it’s about to go up or down some stairs by putting into “Stair Mode” with a toggle switch in the remote interface. Stairs are still a challenge for Spot, and Stair Mode slows the robot down and encourages it to pitch its body more aggressively to get a better view of the stairs. You’re encouraged to use stair mode, and also encouraged to send Spot up and down stairs with its “head” pointing up the stairs both ways, but these are not requirements for stair navigation— if you want to, you can send Spot down stairs head first without putting it in stair mode. Jackowski says that eventually, Spot will detect stairways by itself even when not in stair mode and adjust itself accordingly, but for now, that de-risking is solidly in the hands of the user.

Spot’s sensor payload, which is what we were trying out for the demo, provided a great opportunity for us to hear Spot STOMP STOMP STOMPING all over the place, which was also an opportunity for us to ask Jackowski why they can’t make Spot a little quieter. “It’s advantageous for Spot to step a little bit hard for the same reason it’s advantageous for you to step a little bit hard if you’re walking around blindfolded—that reason is that it really lets you know where the ground is, particularly when you’re not sure what to expect.” He adds, “It’s all in the name of robustness— the robot might be a little louder, but it’s a little more sure of its footing.”

Boston Dynamics isn’t yet ready to disclose the price of an arm-equipped Spot, but if you’re a potential customer, now is the time to contact the Boston Dynamics sales team to ask them about it. As a reminder, the base model of Spot costs US $74,500, with extra sensing or compute adding a substantial premium on top of that.

There will be a livestream launch event taking place at 11am ET today, during which Boston Dynamics’ CEO Robert Playter, VP of Marketing Michael Perry, and other folks from Boston Dynamics will make presentations on this new stuff. It’ll be live at this link, or you can watch it below. Continue reading

Posted in Human Robots