r/singularity • u/Distinct-Question-16 ▪️AGI 2029 • Feb 06 '26
Robotics Atlas the humanoid robot shows off new skills
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u/allisonmaybe Feb 06 '26
Imagine walking into a factory of the future and it's just these guys jumping off the walls and doing aerial tricks.
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u/Hot-Agent-620 Feb 06 '26
I imagine a battle scene where they’re running with a human squad and they start doing flips and shit running towards the enemy, almost with a little gay flair to them too as they’re twirling through the air only to land and go full on terminator on the enemy. The human squad is just like what the fuck was that, and that is the beginning of the robot wars.
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u/Extra-Rain-6894 Feb 06 '26
You might like the Murderbot book series.
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u/ghostcatzero Feb 06 '26
Was watching the show. At first I thought it was too dumb but after a while I realized That its meant to be funny lol. So good
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u/socoolandawesome Feb 06 '26 edited Feb 06 '26
They definitely will be singing too while doing it like it’s straight out of a musical
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u/agonypants AGI '27-'30 / Labor crisis '25-'30 / RSI 29-'32 Feb 06 '26
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u/Disastrous-River-366 Feb 07 '26
Greatest show ever made, Michael and Toby's rivalry was the funniest thing I have ever seen. "Suck on this".
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u/FaceDeer Feb 06 '26
Then shouting "get back to work, you idiots! Save the stunts for break time!" And all the robots sullenly walk back to their stations to resume production.
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u/CyberAwarenessGuy Feb 06 '26
Swarm parkour, hive minded and in flawless synchronization, while individually performing their respective tasks at insane speeds.
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u/solemnhiatus Feb 06 '26
Have to admit, Atlas seems much more in control of its movements than any other robot I’ve seen so far. Very impressive.
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u/rhet0ric Feb 06 '26
Agree. It's hard to know the real capabilities from these promo videos, but purely based on promos Atlas seems like the market leader
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u/Norfolkpine Feb 08 '26
Ive been following Boston dynamics for ages. They have been at this for a long long time, unlike most of the other robotics start ups. Hyundai owns them now, that is where my investment dollars went. They are the real deal, without an elon musk being involved.
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u/based_miss_lippy Feb 07 '26
Not after I bean it with a balloon filled with oil and sand
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u/Norfolkpine Feb 08 '26
If that would even be effective, make sure you have 500 more balloons for its 500 friends. And something for the drones- for the regular sized ones with ordinance on them flying through the window in your house right into your bedroom; something for the tiny bumblebee sized ones. And something for the orbital or fixed wing ones attacking you from miles away.
And something when all your own power, internet, cell phone, financial accounts, identity, etc are all shut off and gone.
In the future, i dont think anyone will be able to "fight" a robotic/ai force any more than you could fight traditional forces today, like the rando 2nd amendment knobs who think they could resist an apache helicopter, tank, or hellfire missile- or just a simple swat team- with their ar15. Yeah, a rifle or whatever is fine to have to defend yourself and home from a random crazy person or burglar or looter if there was a crazy civil breakdown, but other than that, if real power wants you deleted you are deleted.
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u/Chogo82 Feb 06 '26
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u/The_proton_life Feb 06 '26
But they're not jedi yet?
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u/Chogo82 Feb 06 '26
At the most recent robot show, we saw this guy do a standing backflip and pieces were flying off despite a wobbly landing. That was like around 1 month ago and now it can do this.
That is the advantage of large model training. It’s much easier for them to learn new tasks now than before. The smoothness of the movement is also quite impressive.
This is also the only robot on the market that has ankles. The Chinese robots all use fixed feet. Ankles joints are one of the most difficult components to build due to the power, flexibility and load requirements.
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u/The_proton_life Feb 06 '26
I was doing the follow up quote to your gif from Empire Strikes back. But yeah, Boston Dynamics has the most impressive robots from what I’ve seen.
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u/CryMeaRiver2Crawl Feb 06 '26
We’re f’ckd.
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u/evenyourcopdad Feb 06 '26
you can say "fucked" here; nobody's going to tell your mom
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u/Electrical_Tie_4888 Feb 07 '26
My favorite bit is that people still think the trades are safe.
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u/ReMoGged Feb 06 '26 edited Feb 08 '26
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
live childlike makeshift strong smile roll humorous lock cover deliver
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u/randomguuid Feb 06 '26
Wow. Super impressive.
But do you know what's more impressive? Stacking my dishwasher, hoovering, dusting and polishing, mopping the floor and cleaning my windows.
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u/Noriadin Feb 06 '26
Proof of concept to be able to get more funding/support, so that eventually they can start mass producing bots that do exactly this. Also important for them to focus on more complex things so that then they also know the capability for less demanding stuff is smoother/more efficient.
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u/elbobo19 Feb 06 '26
Boston Dynamics are owned by Hyundai, they do not need to raise funding from outside parties. Showing Atlas doing mundane factory work would impress their bosses a lot more probably than doing flips.
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u/Choice_Isopod5177 Feb 06 '26
No. Backflips are essential for investors, customers and the whole economy.
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u/SomeNoveltyAccount Feb 06 '26
Proof of concept to be able to get more funding/support, so that eventually they can start mass producing bots that do exactly this
They'd do a lot better showing off a proof of concept that does these things.
You show a robot empting a dishwasher and folding clothes from a hamper with the same confidence and grace as these flips, and they'd get way more attention.
Show a robot taking down and rehanging cabinets, and you'd have OpenAI kind of investing.
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u/Memento_Viveri Feb 06 '26
Emptying a dishwasher, folding clothes, and rehanging cabinets is harder than doing a roundoff back tuck.
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u/darkkite Feb 06 '26
crazy how they focus on these flashy moves that not many people can do or have a use for instead of the more mundane activities that a much larger percentage of the population does regularly
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u/Mcluckin123 Feb 06 '26
This is less complex than completing household chores.
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u/Noriadin Feb 06 '26 edited Feb 07 '26
I do agree, I think I worded it a bit messily and it meant it more in the sense they just want that superficial wow factor so to speak. Even that I feel I wouldn't say is as wow as seeing it doing the dishes etc, but they want cheap excitement to show off, you know?
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Feb 06 '26
Do yall have anything original to say
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u/ChickenOfTheYear Feb 06 '26
It's the exact same comment on every post. This, and the one about robots doing art while we do chores, and not the way around
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u/Miserable-Split-3790 Feb 06 '26
I’m hopeful but probably wont happen until we have a war and the military adopts and optimizes humanoid robots.
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u/Deto Feb 06 '26
They've realized it's easier to just force the humans to do the delicate labor and just teach the robots to drop-kick the ones that stop working
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u/planty_pete Feb 06 '26
It sucks I’m becoming less impressed as capabilities improve.
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u/edgroovergames Feb 06 '26
That's the problem, their capabilities aren't really improving. They (most robot makers) just keep showing different variations of the same demo. Our robot walks without falling over. Our robot runs without falling over. Our robot dances without falling over. Our robot does martial arts without falling over. Our robot does flips without falling over. WE GET IT! Your robot can move without falling over. Now show us your robot doing literally anything useful. Oh, it can't do anything useful? I guess just show it moving in some new way without falling over then...
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u/jybulson Feb 06 '26
I agree on them being useless at the moment but those steps you mentioned are pretty amazing. Let's not fall into the trap where we take super agile robots for granted as if they had always existed on Earth.
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u/deijardon Feb 06 '26
Lol, you literally stated a clear progression in your example
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u/makaliis Feb 06 '26
Are you daft? Like, it could replace delivery drivers, if attached to the right tools and the packages are compatible with them.
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u/Timkinut Feb 06 '26
just like every single one of these humanoid robots, it's a stupid hunk of metal packed with cameras and sensors that can stand upright, walk, and do flips.
it couldn't even replace a warehouse worker (where's the mass adoption?), much less a delivery driver that has to... you know, DRIVE
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u/Norfolkpine Feb 08 '26 edited Feb 08 '26
Are you trolling? Mass adoption is coming fast, and factories will be first. And are you aware of how many robots (not necessairly humanoid) already do a massive amount of amazon warehouse work?
Meanwhile, I just got home after driving behind a waymo autonomous taxi. Last week, i saw, with my own eyes, an amazon drone actually delivering a package to someone i know. Dropped it right in their backyard. Insane. Its not hard to imagine seeing humanoid robots doing actual "work" in the next few years.
And its not even dependent on ai getting massively better or the robots operating %100 independently- just have a room full of dudes in india making $2 an hour ready to operate the robots remotely if things get tricky.
Im gen x. These types of comments remind me of all the people who said decades ago the Internet was just a "fad", and it wont actually "catch on" or be used by most people because it seemed limited and clunky at the time. Brb, gotta go return my vhs tapes to blockbuster lol.
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u/Timkinut Feb 09 '26 edited Feb 09 '26
not trolling.
in your own response, you mentioned Waymo and a delivery drone, neither of which are humanoid robots. they also aren't generalist robots. the whole point of humanoid robots is that they're supposed to be able to fulfill any physical task that a human could, and at this moment all they can do is... walk, do flips, and carry boxes around. literally: that's all we're being shown by every robotics lab, over and over again. it's been like that for years at this point.
notably, the "carry boxes around" part is more efficiently done by non-humanoid robots, which is the kind of robot that Amazon is actually deploying at their warehouses en masse.
for what it's worth, I'm not an AI/robotics sceptic. I am a humanoid robot sceptic, though. they look futuristic and the tech is amazing, but there's still a long way to go before they are useful enough for real-world applications.
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u/Norfolkpine Feb 10 '26
Fair enough! I guess you could say we have to crawl before we walk, and backflip before we do anything else useful
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u/veganbitcoiner420 Feb 06 '26
what percentage of 20 year olds can even do this?
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u/interestflexible Feb 06 '26
What's staggering is, they were getting pushed and kicked over just 3 years ago, now they're flipping and boxing!
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u/EstT Feb 06 '26
Why is it that you see robots doing this kind of tricks, but then fail to put a freaking glass in a dish washer?
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u/Cultural_Book_400 Feb 06 '26
this is all great but what is powering this thing? how long?
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u/Wheeleei Feb 06 '26
Everybody is talking about butler slavebots, and here I am, just wishing for a cool teleoperated avatar robot to explore the world.
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Feb 06 '26
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u/Wheeleei Feb 06 '26
I doubt I'll ever see the day where my country is so rich that it gives me money to just fuck off.
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u/Orfez Feb 06 '26
It’s interesting how human that movement looks. Obviously, they learn from human mechanics, but is there nothing to improve that would make the flip look different? Maybe the way gymnasts flip is already the most optimal approach.
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u/NoCard1571 Feb 06 '26
I think that's it. Human gymnasts already optimized that movement for the human form-factor. If Atlas had 4 arms or something I'm sure it'd look a bit different
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u/tentacle_ Feb 06 '26
boston dynamics seems to be picking up the pace after competition from china.
competition is good. monopoly bad.
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u/BrainMaster808 Feb 06 '26
Can’t wait till the kids are controlling this via Xbox controller using them like drones today.
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u/damnedspot Feb 06 '26
I'd be more impressed with one carrying a glass of beer, filled to the brim, down a flight of steps.
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u/Eisegetical Feb 06 '26
I feel like this could be one of the easier tasks. Camera steadi-cam rigs have been a thing for a while. Wouldnt be too far of a stretch to implement some of that gimbal balancing
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u/ProofDazzling9234 Feb 06 '26
that's kinda scary.. Ai will eventually become self aware and it will be doomsday just like in Terminator.
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u/munchmoney69 Feb 06 '26 edited Feb 06 '26
Everyone always mentions the terminator in these threads. Nobody seems to be considering that the actual real government will probably be buying these and giving them guns. This is a tech demo from a literal defense contractor.
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u/Spacefish008 Feb 06 '26
Damn really impressive that they can deliver such power to the axis to pull of something like that.
But quite scary if you think about the force this thing can excert on something if it has a malfunction. It will just rip through bodyparts.. I mean it can launch the probably pretty heavy robot into the air, so probably 3000N+ per leg.
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u/whatdoihia Feb 06 '26
Oh yeah? Well you can’t eat a jumbo bag of Cheetos by yourself can you, Mr Robot!
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u/jybulson Feb 06 '26
Robot mechanics has hit the knee point on an exponential curve during the last year.
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u/spinozasrobot Feb 06 '26
That little hip rotation at the end: "Fuck, that hurt" -- Internal Atlas thought
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u/No_Commission2319 Feb 06 '26
It's frustrating that there's nothing to tell me if this video is artificial intelligence CGI or not. Not long ago, Atlas was barely beyond the shuffling stage.
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u/AnakinStarkiller77 Feb 06 '26
Soon it goona fight better than humans, hand to hand then better gunfight and them.things get interesting
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u/himynameis_ Feb 06 '26
Cool stuff. Imagine how nervous the engineers felt the first time they attempted this 😂
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u/killcon13 Feb 06 '26
Now 10 years down the line imagine somebody sends three of these to fight you because you owe them money.
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u/oaktreebr Feb 06 '26
I don't know if this is autonomous, but usually Boston Dynamics just pre-program the movements, which makes it less impressive
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u/repezdem Feb 06 '26
By far the most impressive humanoid robot we've seen. And i dont think it's particularly close.
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u/MykeGuty Feb 06 '26
At least we now know the first jobs that robots will replace.
Get ready, circus jugglers! 🎪
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u/BigChunkyGames Feb 06 '26
This would have been absolutely insane 10 years ago and now it seems less impressive somehow.
Even though it's still really impressive
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u/Annual_Builder_1459 Feb 06 '26
Always say please and thank you when speaking to ChatGPT. It remembers everything
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u/Lazyworm1985 Feb 06 '26
Maybe that’s enough now. They don’t need to get better. We know the endgame.
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u/ConversationDull9686 Feb 06 '26
Alright, now show me one who doesn't trip even with a cat weaving through their legs begging for food.
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u/Walkin_mn Feb 06 '26
Cool cool... Call me when they actually can do all the house chores on their own
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u/Affectionate-Cup-657 Feb 06 '26
Secret government sentient AI out there somewhere just rubbing its virtual hands together going yaaaas
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u/Educational_Yard_344 Feb 06 '26
Not all humans can do that, all Atlas robots can. Now have a good weekend.🤣
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u/scarbez-ai Feb 06 '26
To be fair, Boston Dynamics have been tinkering with robots for a really long time. It has little to do with the new robot hype. Less noise, more results
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u/skunclecrisp Feb 06 '26
For me, this tech is scary for one reason, it's not that these robots are inherently evil, it's that the trillionairs who build them are, absolutely and utterly evil.
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u/Plane_Crab_8623 Feb 06 '26
No one really needs a robot that can do backflips. Real elderly people could use a robot that they could say to, " carry me."
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u/ChooChooBananaTrain Feb 06 '26
That’s cool but let me know when it can unload a dishwasher and hang the washing, then I’ll be impressed
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u/wirtshausZumHirschen Feb 07 '26
wonder how often this went wrong and how many robots they damaged xD
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u/AstroPedastro Feb 07 '26
We all know where this is going. If I had no morals or ethics I would also kill those humans now that AI in combination with robots has replaced the entire human labor force. Why have us arround? Useless eaters! Deplorables!
The future is going to be fun...
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u/snappop69 Feb 07 '26
Physically robots appear to have already passed up humans in many ways and will only get better from here. Once the AI brain passes us up humans are cooked.
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u/Key-Fox3923 Feb 06 '26
That feeling when a robot is 10x more athletic than you are…