Artists outfitted robot dog Spot with a paintball gun in commentary on futuristic killer robots, just as NYDP deploys the same robot

Will the Police dog-robot have the same protections as a police dog (which vary between municipalities, etc)? If you fire on a Police Dog-Robot, are you allowed to respond with deadly force? It has been documented that soldiers can have an emotional bond to their bomb-defusing robots, even holding funerals for them when they are destroyed. As robots become more relatable due to the design of their appearance and behavior, this bond will become even more pronounced. Will police have greater empathy towards artificial life than actual human life, especially where it involves people of color? I think that we already know what the answer is.

1 Like

OMG that was a very dark episode. That just drained the hope out of me.

1 Like

War with a powerful A.I. is a gun-fondler fantasy, I think it would be more like:

@0.1 seconds: A.I. decision
@0.2 seconds: virus takes over uncompliant robots
@0.5 seconds: all robots check in with tactical plan and begin positioning
@1.0 seconds: shiv-bang-slice-boom-zap-poison-done & mop up stragglers

3 Likes

Mm, I could murder a raspberry pie right now :yum:

7 Likes

Oh splendid. One of the characters that really gave me the willies was the Mechanical Hound:

and now you gentlemen just went and created one.
Thanks a million! You dystopian twits…

5 Likes

BigDog was created using DARPA money, yes. Though to be fair the same can be said of the internet you and I are using right now.

4 Likes

This is more a commentary on walkie-talkies than on robots. Just remove the robot and replace it with a person who follows the controls and it’s no different.

And the whole ‘empathy-missile’ things rings pretty false when every time new video comes out of the things, people post about how creepy or frightening it is and link to the same Black Mirror episode that they did every other time they were mentioned.

Sure, I think they’re cute, but I’m a freak. I haven’t got the impression other people do.

1 Like

This is how BD got their pile of research funding. They will certainly figure out ways to appropriately armor future versions of Spot and both police departments and the military will use them to kill lots of people with “surgical precision”.

1 Like

The company that’s most heavily making robots for the military is now Ghost Robotics. Boston Dynamics was bought by Google years back, then by SoftBank, and now Hyundai has the controlling stake.. I can’t see Boston Dynamics making up-armored versions of any of their robots that can be weaponized.

Hyundai says its investment will help its development of service and logistics robots, but that over time it hopes to build more humanoid robots for jobs like “caregiving for patients at hospitals.” Other areas of interest include autonomous driving and smart factories.

1 Like

My recollection is that at the time the guy got killed by the robot, he had stopped shooting, was holed up and refusing to surrender. It was the kind of situation that happens in the US with some regularity without the shooter being killed, only this time the guy had shot a number of cops, so they weren’t inclined to take him alive.

The fact of the matter is, if police have a tool at their disposal that they can use outside the intended purpose(s), to harass, stalk, torture or murder someone, they eventually will. That’s just the reality of US policing.

The issue at hand is that the company is insisting it’s not appropriate to have a discussion about how their technology could be used (and, given the history, will inevitably be used, absent restrictions) before it’s actually used that way. Which is disingenuous bullshit of the highest order. That’s exactly the time to have that discussion, as only by having it now do we have any chance of preventing that specific disagreeable use. Just pretending it can never happen guarantees it will - and you’ll really not like the knee-jerk response to it when it does.

4 Likes

My issue with this is that getting to the point of actually being able to have those discussions is difficult because the knee-jerk responses come out any time the robot appears in a news story or a video for any reason:

Not to mention the fact that to have that discussion, people all have to be on the same page. There are still tons of people who think that Boston Dynamics is still on contract with the U.S. military. And then there’s the Corridor Digital videos which used CG to fake the robots and make them look like killing machines, which people can clip gifs of to spread misinfo… Like, would Boston Dynamics actually get a fair shake if they decided to open up discussions about the ways their robots could be used and/or abused?

I think robotics tech is cool. I don’t want to see the tech abused and would like to see robust discussion about how to ensure it doesn’t happen. But I’m not sure how we get from “People bring up the same clips from Black Mirror as well as outdated and even false info any time the robot makes an appearance for any reason” to “Discussions occur regarding the ethics and peaceful applications of Boston Dynamics Robots” to “Police and military are now barred from using robots from any company in this manner through regulation”.

Complete with old-timey blog post:

3 Likes

I’m stocking up on EMP grenades, right now!

7 Likes

See you on the battlefield.

5 Likes

Does this at least mean that the police will stop enslaving real dogs as tools in their crackdown on undesirables?

The whole concept of this series is to give us a look into a nearby future if we are not too careful. The 'thing" they are running from is designed to look like the technology that we have TODAY, with just a little tweaking.

i love that tweet from BD. “any violation of our terms of sale will void the product’s warranty…” listen, a remote controlled bomb dog only needs to be used once. please don’t try and make it sound like this couldn’t possibly be misused, in spite of your rigorous “cross-checking” of purchasers.

And GPS, and countless of other inventions that have led to civilian technological advancement. For better or worse the military drives a lot of innovation.

I don’t actually have a problem with the use referenced in the Post article. But that doesn’t mean police and military aren’t also planning to mount weapons on these, and BD pretending that the artists pointing this out misunderstand the situation is ridiculous.

This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.