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Comment by runawaybottle | Hacker News Reader

This is kind of dangerous. Something like this that is not tested can pretty much kill you if it fails in anyway. You’ll just fall to the ground from about 5 ft, which is often enough to do something bad to your skull.

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Then don't do it. Everyone has their own level of comfort. It is disappointing to be criticized for awesome innovation by armchair advisors. Innovation and progress is necessary for humanity to continue. Fear, solves nothing. Super impressed by this dad!

If you're worried about this, wait until you hear about the parents who give their kids bicycles and skateboards!

A lot of things are dangerous. Some people would be quite willing to accept that risk so they can walk again.

The discipline of engineering is littered with catastrophes throughout history - everything from bridge collapses to cars loosing braking power like in the old Buicks from the 50s. Yet we still keep innovating because we know that despite the risks involved the reward could be immeasurable.

Besides, this dad doing it for his son is probably taking more care and precaution than some nameless/faceless engineer.

EDIT: clarity

My mother can no longer walk due to an inoperable bone spur that has destroyed her tendons. She’s 75. She’s risk death and injury to walk again.

You're not wrong, but if you had some of the tech from the Boston Dynamics robots, you could imagine something smart enough to either retain balance in the first place, or take a forward/backward roll to prevent a more serious injury.

The Father here has done a fantastic job, I'm sure his son is thrilled to be able to take some steps -- also the low-tech tether from above solves the falling problem for the moment which presumably lets him get on with solving other issues.

Well done Dad!

Cars are dangerous yet they're ubiquitous. Risk vs reward I guess

The medical device industry in France is heavily regulated and products are audited before they reach the market so you can be sure it's a risk that's been identified and remediated.

Yeah, I think the OP was really talking about this individual case.

Eg, this guy put his kid in a device that could kill him (maybe).

Looking back at the videos from Boston Dynamics, a ton of effort is put in to the failure mode testing. I highly doubt 1) this is dynamic, 2) failure modes were considered much.

This individual case is a medical device company in France, not some garage hacker as the title might imply. No human (except the engineers on the down-low) will have stepped foot inside the device before a very late stage in the design, possibly requiring approval for human trials, at which point all those risks will have been assessed.

I stand corrected.

A helmet seems like an easy fix for that.

What if it falls into a pushup stance? In my fitter years, I could dead drop straight into a pushup.

Isn't he wearing a helmet?

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