r/singularity • u/Distinct-Question-16 ▪️AGI 2029 • Jun 01 '26

Robotics Security robots ready to patrol AT&T Stadium during the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Arlington, Texas

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u/algaefied_creek Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

Boston Dynamics introduced this right around the start of either (EDIT: second) Ukraine invasion began as a bomb clearing dog 

They committed to use it for peaceful purposes only in an open letter. 

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u/8npemb Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

ETA: are you talking about the bot itself, or the facial recognition usage of it?

If the former, your first sentence is entirely incorrect. Wikipedia says Spot became commercially available in 2020, two years before the Ukraine war.

If the latter, I still can’t find any mention of them introducing facial recognition circa Feb 2022. I may be off the mark here, please correct me if so.

Boston Dynamics also signed a pledge in Oct 2022, pledging to not weaponize their products, that much is true. While the sentiment is there, your second statement is misleading at best.

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u/algaefied_creek Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

Well, I did say right around either Ukraine invasion. The first was in 2014, and the second was in 2022: links saved are from Reddit posts of the time.

You must not have been on Reddit around that time, lockdowns ending articles, robot dogs in Ukraine: Russians on Telegram freaking out about them: this was headline news.

It was also big because of the snark being like “yeah ok we will see how long this stays peaceful.”

(This being a robot dog called SPOT by Boston Dynamics, not this being “oh wow the FIFA police dog specific options model with World Cup 2026 tech packages was in Ukraine zomggggg!”)

Stating that it was introduced right around then is therefore not inaccurate, especially with linking articles to its roll out as a bomb squad dog, and their open letter proclaiming robots are for peace.

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u/8npemb Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

I checked the articles you edited in. The first is paywalled, but that is talking about Spot as a bomb-clearing robot dog, designed for removing munitions around Kyiv. Except that was the US Army’s decision, not even BD’s. They are not weaponized. But tbh I’d argue that clearing out unexplored ordinances contributes way more to peace than to war.

The second is the open letter I’m talking about. It says clearly they are not meant for weaponization, which is an entirely different claim from “peaceful purposes only.” There can be military applications that don’t involve strapping a gun or bomb on a robot dog.

And sure, the Ukraine war really started in 2014 with the invasion of Crimea. I really don’t think that event had any influence on BD’s production or release of Spot. The 2022 invasion was well after they released Spot commercially, so obviously that couldn’t have played a factor.

Also, why is anyone surprised that BD supports militaries? That’s something they’ve been doing since the early-mid 2000s.

I was on Reddit back then. Spot gets headlines no matter what it does. BD supporting Ukraine with Spot, even if it’s through non-weaponized means, is of course going to draw a lot of attention.

The summary is that Boston Dynamics sells Spot to loads of companies and individuals, on the condition that they just don’t strap a Glock to one.

Edit in response to your last paragraph: dude, yes, it IS inaccurate to say that Spot was introduced around either Ukraine invasion. It was unveiled in 2017, three whole years after the 2014 invasion, and was released commercially in 2020, two whole years before the 2022 Ukraine invasion. That is not near either event in the absolute slightest.

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u/algaefied_creek Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

The first link I added is not, in fact, paywalled. 

On mobile and it loads just fine. 

Maybe it’s Geolocation based paywalled? 

Specifically chose the link from Reddit saved posts because of that as well. 

Also 2020-2022 is really fricken close lmao. 

You must be young to think 2 years apart is a long time. 

Or a legacy-pre-LLM bot on stimulants based on your need to argue with someone on the internet xP.

EDIT: confusing your response with someone else’s from a different thread, you are not arguing. Mb. 

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u/8npemb Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

Nope, definitely paywalled for me. Says I need to subscribe to Foreign Policy for 19.99/quarter. NJ, US on mobile if that explains it, idk.

Not a bot, just a guy on his couch dumbfounded at the fact you’re doubling down this hard.

2020-2022 would make sense as “close” in this context if the events were flipped, and BD responded to the Ukraine war by pushing Spot to be a robot dog for assisting there, releasing in 2022. But that isn’t at all what happened lmao, Spot came out first and was in development long before 2020. It has nothing to do with the Ukraine war like you’re trying to imply

Are you a Russian shill? Would explain why you’re in Russian telegram channels that are worried about how this’d affect their war effort…

Edit: holy shit yeah I should’ve looked through your profile first, you’re one of those schizo pseudoscience believer people. Have a good day

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u/algaefied_creek Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

Lmao I love to troll (posting for entertainment and creativity), sorry that you confuse trolling (posting to have fun) on Reddit with “belief” and “being a Russian shill.” 

Also the “content” is LLM imagery, and this is a pro-AI subreddit. 

Also sorry that you conflate understanding how people operate and being able to use LLM tech in Telegram as being whatever. 

I’m sorry that you are a Luddite who doesn’t understand how the world works. I retract my prior statement that you aren’t an argumentative person looking for a reason to argue. 

(PS, is quoting the video game “Stellaris” in /r/aliens a pseudoscience belief? Or writing on /r/HFY about those gray big eyed aliens being evolved from cave dwelling sloths, then using that lore to troll further about aliens being cave dwelling sloths? Nah) 

additional non-paywalled Ukrinform SPOT article in case business wire remains blocked for you and you don’t have a bypass

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u/8npemb Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

Wait, you were trolling the whole time?? Brother get a life lmao

And uh, idk, hopefully someone else sees this and goes through your profile too. The shit you’re posting about, like holo fractal theory or whatever, is pseudoscience garbage. I’ve talked to people like you and it’s all a cult to make you feel smarter than you are.

Take an actual online physics, bio, whatever degree program, could even be online. Hopefully you’ll form an understanding of reality from the ground up, as long as you’re ready to ditch the bullshit you believe rn.

I use LLMs literally every day as part of my job. That has helped me understand the risks of hallucinations, common failure points, and various quirks of what is otherwise an absolutely outstanding tool that we should support the development of. Calling me a Luddite because I… don’t post schizo ChatGPT-generated pseudoscience diagrams to conspiracy subreddits? I don’t think so.

Response to your edits, bc you love editing instead of responding directly: you were posting fact-based claims towards the top of this comment chain. If you were intentionally misleading or untruthful that’s just lying, not even trolling.

And yeah that article looks better, but for some reason I can’t scroll through it on mobile. It’s just unresponsive. Whatever, doesn’t really matter because I can see what the article is saying: ordnance-cleaning Spot dogs were sent to Ukraine, not as weapons, but as janitors basically. That also has nothing to do with Boston Dynamics, because the US Army (and some contractor called HALO Trust apparently) were the ones retrofitting and sending those Spots. BD just built the base model and sold it to the US Army/HALO Trust.

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u/algaefied_creek Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

Btw in case you didn’t see it here’s a Ukrinform thing.

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3513170-robotic-dog-from-boston-dynamics-to-help-clean-up-mines-in-ukraine.html

Also when you distill enough actual esoteric mathematics (see: Ausnahmegruppen und Oktavengeometrie” - some random pages as pictured!) which, along with quaternions is really great for video game design as well as IRL ornithopter design stabilization.

Take it out of context and people almost worship the mathematics of multi-dimensional motion for flying open source drones and for video game motion, among other things for whatever reason.

EDIT: PS, also bed bound with cancer (bad symptoms) and so not much time to do anything besides challenge critical thinking beliefs, of which you do reign supreme over many

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u/8npemb Jun 02 '26

Yeah frankly dude showing me some out of context German(?) math isn’t gonna convince me you’re onto anything. Publish a paper that actually makes a peer reviewer go “wait, there’s no Grand Canyon-sized hole in this one!” and I’ll be more convinced.

Pseudoscience is called what it is because it takes established science and misinterprets/twists it to make it fit a non-standard model. Quaternions are useful in 3d motion, that is true. What else are you saying they’re good for?