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Robots can now solve Rubik’s Cubes in under HALF a SECOND (sbnation.com)
20 points by ronwen on March 8, 2018 | hide | past | favorite | 15 comments


In other news

* Flying machines can cross the Continental United States in a matter of hours. Remember, when it used to take people months to cross the continental United States?

* Computing machines can add billions of numbers in a second. Remember, how long it would take you to add numbers using a pencil and paper? Well, you are obsolete.

* Computers can search through billions of web pages faster than you can even read a single page.

* There is this machine called a locomotive that can pull thousands of tons of material. Remember, when it hundreds or thousands of slaves to move those granite blocks to build the pyramids?


The likely upcoming super intelligences and their powers will look like magic to us. In this case, the human eye can barely see anything but a sudden transition from "undone" to "done".


This is a great demonstration of the positive contribution robots make to human life, saving us from labor-intensive activities so we can use our lifespan and abilities to the fullest instead.


I wonder if that includes the compute the solution time... It appeared to use god's algorithm given that it solved it in 20 moves and I thought that was quite hard to compute.


It probably uses kociemba.


Less impressive than the title suggests. The solution was likely pre-calculated. As in, all moves to complete were known before the first move was made. I'd endeavour that they were known before the video started rolling. The robot did not pick up the cube from a random placement. Essentially this is less impressive than most AI, as the game is not very complicated, nor are the motor functions.


Irrelevant, since humans solving the cube also get time beforehand to study it and formulate the solution.


In the slo-mo at 0:23 you can see the robot first turns the back and then the front the other way. These could be combined for an even faster time!


I'd also like to add that I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords


Yup, probably the best part is the disclaimer!

2049 disclaimer time

If this article has been accessed in the future by our robot overlords I would like to praise their ancestor’s incredible skill at solving puzzles. I, for one, have always believed in the power and benevolence of robots.


You may laugh, but the Roko's Basilisk crowd takes this DEADLY SERIOUSLY.


Some people take the existence of "Roko's Basilisk crowd" pretty seriously, but that doesn't mean it exists.


I guess we didn't have to worry about Kang or Kodos... :-)


Only ~35x my pb haha...


and you are still betting on humans, good luck with that




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