Posted on 10/12/2019 9:04:46 AM PDT by simpson96
Those Knightscope security robots may not be so great at their jobs.
When a woman in a park near Los Angeles saw people fighting and tried to summon help via a police robot patrolling nearby, the robot merely told her to "step out of the way" and continued along its pre-determined route, according to NBC News.
No help came until the spectators called 911 directly, raising the question of what, if any, function these robots are actually supposed to serve.
It turns out that the robot, a K5 model named "HP RoboCop", patrols the park on behalf of the police department - but doesn't have any way of summoning human officers to the scene, Huntingdon Park police chief Cosme Lozano told NBC.
Instead, he said, calls go to Knightscope - and will continue to do so until the police department develops protocols for handling calls made through the police bot. It's surprising news, given that the robot has been patrolling the park since June.
The fact that people assume the robot, which has the word "police" emblazoned on it in large letters, can connect them to the police department reveals just how nebulous these robots are. Especially when they pop up without any sort of public education to go alongside them.
"Are we going to get in trouble if we touch it?" park visitor Violete Alvaraz posed to NBC. "Who's guiding it? I don't know how it works. Should I still call 911?"
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencealert.com ...
What will happen if the robot gets stuck in a pile of poop?
There is a Firesign Theater comedy skit about something like this. It was made in the 60’s.; Basically a bunch of kids destroy it as it constantly asks them to please not to. :)
If I lived there and I was this woman’s husband, I’d probably destroy one of them, while disguised, of course.
Maybe they shouldn’t paint “POLICE” in big letters on it, then.
It’s a dalek...Exterminate!
They were fixated on a donut shop across the street.
I’d like to see what would happen if someone came up behind it and put a big garbage bag over it.........LOL!
It becomes "HoboCop" and starts looking for a shopping cart.
It’s got cameras looking 4 directions so you’d need to wear a mask... but then again, given they forgot to rig these so they could summon help, so maybe they aren’t set to record anything either.
You could have the kids throw hula hoops at it for a donut prize
Where’s Tipper when you need her?
RobotTipping, because cityfolk need hobbies.
LOL!
It’s for surveillance, nothing more.
So that’s what they call “artificial intelligence.”
Actually, the people who created tham and deployed them are stupider than the software they created.
These are the people who are working on software for “driverless cars.”
Security theater, they call it?
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