Making the Future Happen with Mark Raibert
Hariri Institute and CISE host Distinguished Speaker Marc Raibert, Executive Director of the RAI Institute and founder of Boston Dynamics
By Alex Grzybowski
When many people think of robots, Terminator or I, Robot comes to mind: dystopian sci-fi thrillers where robots are actively trying to destroy humanity. However, current applications of robots do not support these dystopian hypotheses. In recent years, robots have become increasingly advanced, and as a result have seen a multitude of uses across many different industries. The University of Missouri programmed a Boston Dynamics made Spot robot to perform at halftime with Marching Mizzou, and FDNY has employed two of these robots to assist with search and rescue missions.
On Friday, September 13th, Hariri Institute and CISE hosted a Distinguished Speaker Marc Raibert, Executive Director of the Robotics and AI Institute (RAI), formerly known as The AI Institute, and founder of Boston Dynamics at Boston University. The event was standing room only, drawing in over 100 attendees. The talk title, entitled “Making Robots Smarter in Body and Mind.” touched on Raibert’s background in robotics, and his achievements while leading Boston Dynamics, but mainly focused on his multimodal plans with his new project, the AI Institute: give future robots better athletic (body) and cognitive (mind) intelligence.
Before starting Boston Dynamics, Raibert was a professor of computer science and robotics at MIT (1986 to 1995) and earlier at Carnegie Mellon (1980 to 1986). While at CMU and MIT. Raibert founded the Leg Laboratory, a lab that helped establish the scientific basis for highly dynamic legged robots, laying the foundation for the work at Boston Dynamics.
Raibert showed the audience videos of Spot – one of the more widely used robots made by the company – climbing and descending stairs while rocking back and forth on an oil rig, showcasing the robot’s improved mobility control. Some current applications of the Spot robot include entering hazardous environments like Chernobyl or Fukushima and collecting data, providing search and rescue capabilities for law enforcement, and research and development at universities.
At the RAI Institute, Raibert is focused on developing technology aimed at increasing productivity, contributing to human safety, caring for people with disabilities, and helping people live their lives more fully. He outlined the institute’s four major thrusts: Athletic Intelligence, which aims to grant more physical skills to the robots. Cognitive Intelligence, which seeks to make robots smarter; Organic Hardware Design, which looks to improve robot hardware; and Ethics and Society, which plans to study attitudes and the ethics of designing the robots.
Raibert says he envisions a lab which “makes the future happen,” where people have the freedom to think big and the resources to turn those dreams into reality. Raibert plans to achieve this by managing the balance between academic and corporate lab cultures, finding the best of both worlds.
Knowing the amount of potential future roboticists in attendance, Raibert leaves his audience with four pillars of the culture of robotics research. He tells his audience to be technically fearless, diligent, steadfast, and to have technical fun.