How Far Has the Robotics Industry Come? Atlas

The first person to design a robot was Leonardo da Vinci, 500 years ago. In fact, he is famous for conceiving and sketching military weapons, such as tanks, cars, and helicopters, for the feudal lords of his time. His robots, clad in helmets and armor, could move on their own and sit down and stand up.

Since then, robots—evolved by humans—will, as seen in the movements of Atlas unveiled by Boston Dynamics in September 2019, live alongside us on Earth within the next two to three years, in a perfected form and as a new “species.”

When the Atlas robot—whose movements have nearly reached perfection, needing only 20% more—combines with the artificial intelligence (AI) developed over the years, the robots we’ve seen in science fiction movies will no longer be fantasy; they will exist right beside us—on the streets, at work, on construction sites, and on battlefields. This is not a story set far in the future.

In fact, Atlas was originally created for Search and Rescue (SAR)—to locate people in emergency situations or provide aid in mountains, battlefields, major cities, and at sea—and Boston Dynamics, an American robotics startup, was developing this specialized robot under the funding and supervision of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a division of the U.S. Department of Defense. Atlas was first unveiled to the public in July 2013. Since then, it has been acquired by Google and later by Japan’s SoftBank. Boston Dynamics has since consistently showcased Atlas’s evolving capabilities on YouTube.

Atlas actually moves better than I do. It runs faster, is stronger, and is more flexible than I am… And when Atlas fell over and then sprang right back up, as others have noted, it reminded me of the Terminator—who never dies and always gets back up—which even made me feel a little scared.

If a robot like this is used for search and rescue (SAR) as originally intended, it will benefit humanity. But if it goes rogue and tries to dominate humans, as in science fiction movies, it will be a disaster. Atlas’s remarkable progress carries serious implications, and that is why I will end here with this introduction to Atlas.

10/14/2019 by Dr. Lan Joo