San Francisco SPCA uses a robot to chase away homeless people, because cruelty to humans is just fine

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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/12/14/bbq-sauce-countermeasure.html

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giphy

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If you want a picture of the future, imagine a mechanical boot stomping on a human face, forever.

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Because it was cheaper and easier to buy a robot to shoo them away instead of. Oh. I don’t know. Solving the homeless problem itself?

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Christ what a bunch of hypocrites. Sure be nice to the cute little animals but fuck a bunch of humans who would love to have a bit a kindness

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Robots are cooler than homeless people, and easier to weaponise. Otherwise DARPA would have solved it by now, right?

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They should be more careful. In that town one of the homeless people just might reprogram it to kill all humans.

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Why is this surprising in any way? Look at the primal outrage over a dog getting shot (in any circumstances), but when a person of color gets shot? That’s just another day of the week.

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Humans are animals too!

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My first thought, too, on seeing the photo of the robot. It seems like the tech-friendly denizens of the Bay Area are moving from “Star Trek” to “Dr Who” as they find new ways to lead the way in “changing the world.”

More likely turn it into a public poop-bot, which would still be less disgusting than what the city allows to occur on the streets of the Tenderloin.

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I read about this last night and was furious about the fucked up priorities and blindness to the whole optics of the situation.

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Do these folks realize these robots are walking piggy banks, right? Like I’m gonna say someone is going to start breaking these robots to sell what’s inside for scrap.

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the worst kind

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When I worked in San Francisco, I noticed many homeless folks with companion dogs. What does the robot do with these companions, I wonder?

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There’s irony in this somewhere:

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Both of which are probably cheaper than the new iMac pro fully loaded.

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Funny how software requires hard cash…

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SFSPCA has a long history of dick moves against homeless folks living near their main facility. The plus side of this latest dick move is the major media splash they’re getting from it is probably going to put a dent in their revenues.

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I am confused. I thought maybe the robot was to keep strays from getting harassed or cooked or something? But it sounds like a really expensive “mall cop”.

I hope the Great Plains SPCA isn’t as big of dicks. My kid has done some stuff with them and donates stuff them for her birthday.

Also - there is only on K-9 Robot.

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