Tesla Bot Humanoid 'Robot' Vs. Boston Dynamics Atlas Parkour Robot
Elon Musk wants Tesla to make a general purpose humanoid robot, and thinks that a prototype will be ready by next year. Boston Dynamics actually has a roughly humanoid robot that can be programmed to perform some impressive parkour moves. Of course, you can ask Do People Prefer Humanoid Robots?
A lot of very talented, very deep-pocketed people have been trying to make a man-sized robot, and although amazing strides have been made, none have entirely succeeded.
Amazing strides, see what I did there? This compilation is only six years old; since that time, of course, improvements have been made, if you only take the best video shots.
This is Boston Dynamics Atlas robot going through a parkour course:
Just so Tesla engineers didn't think that this took a year or so of effort, here are the engineers giving some explanations:
Science fiction fans have long been conceptually familiar with robots, humanoid and otherwise. I've picked out mandroid (from Altered Carbon, by Richard Morgan), the consumption robots (from The Midas Plague, by Frederik Pohl) and the usuform robot (from Q.U.R., by Anthony Boucher) to give you some idea of what they're shooting at.
Tactile Skin Supplier Map
'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!' - Ray Cummings, 1931.
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