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Robotics Government

Boston Dynamics Is Selling its 70-Pound Robot Dog To Police Departments (yahoo.com) 126

Posted by EditorDavid from the woof dept.
The New York Times reports on what the city's police department calls Digidog, "a 70-pound robotic dog with a loping gait, cameras and lights affixed to its frame, and a two-way communication system that allows the officer maneuvering it remotely to see and hear what is happening." Police said the robot can see in the dark and assess how safe it is for officers to enter an apartment or building where there may be a threat. "The NYPD has been using robots since the 1970s to save lives in hostage situations & hazmat incidents," the department said on Twitter. "This model of robot is being tested to evaluate its capabilities against other models in use by our emergency service unit and bomb squad."

But the robot has skeptics. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat, described Digidog on Twitter as a "robotic surveillance ground" drone.... Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union, said empowering a robot to do police work could have implications for bias, mobile surveillance, hacking and privacy. There is also concern that the robot could be paired with other technology and be weaponized. "We do see a lot of police departments adopting powerful new surveillance and other technology without telling, let alone asking, the communities they serve," he said. "So openness and transparency is key...."

A mobile device that can gather intelligence about a volatile situation remotely has "tremendous potential" to limit injuries and fatalities, said Keith Taylor, a former SWAT team sergeant at the police department who teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "It's important to question police authority; however, this appears to be pretty straightforward," he said. "It is designed to help law enforcement get the information they need without having a deadly firefight, for instance."
The Times reports that Boston Dynamics has been selling the dog since June. It's also already being used by the Massachusetts State Police and the Honolulu Police Department, "while other police departments have called the company to learn more about the robot, which has a starting price of about $74,000 and may cost more with extra features," according to Michael Perry, vice president of business development at the company.

The Times points out that the robot dog is also being purchased by utility and energy companies as well as manufacturers and construction companies, which use it to get into dangerous spaces. "The robot has been used to inspect sites with hazardous material. Early in the pandemic, it was used by health care workers to communicate with potentially sick patients at hospital triage sites, Perry said."
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Boston Dynamics Is Selling its 70-Pound Robot Dog To Police Departments More

Boston Dynamics Is Selling its 70-Pound Robot Dog To Police Departments

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  • Dog? Dog?! DOG?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by franzrogar ( 3986783 ) on Sunday February 28, 2021 @08:37PM (#61109692)

    That's not a DOG...

    That's a fucking moving nightmare!

    If I see that monstrosity walking towards me I run for my life!

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday February 28, 2021 @08:41PM (#61109696)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Hmm, I wonder if they'll program it to defend itself.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 )

      TFA is a great example of why the police need more defunding.

      They complain that they can't afford bodycams, yet they have plenty of money for robotic dogs.

      • Re:People already sharing tips (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Monday March 01, 2021 @02:06AM (#61110236)

        What you're praying for isn't "defunding", it is effective means for control over how public money is spent.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by spun ( 1352 )

          A.K.A defunding. Note, "defunding" has never meant "zero funding" except to a radical minority. Most people who use the term mean "reduce funding and put the money saved into other emergency services that are better able to handle certain issues than a militarized police force."

          • Words have meanings for a reason, son. "Defunding" has meant for a long time and still means precisely one thing:

            defunded; defunding; defunds (transitive verb): to withdraw funding from

            This is also how it is used by the people who actually came up with it. Now, you may have rationalized it so that it is more palatable to you, but like the "radical minority" you have embraced the idea that the problem is "too much money". You've also embraced the goal "reduce" and "save" it. You appear to magically believe t

          • Note, "defunding" has never meant "zero funding" except to a radical minority.

            Note: "defunding" has always meant "zero funding". It's the literal meaning of the term. It's the dictionary definition of the term. The only people who believe in the Newspeak version are a radical minority of idiots. Idiots who absolutely refuse to grasp that their redefinition of the word is not widely accepted. (And who also fail to grasp that their attempts to redefine a tail as a leg only make them look stupid.)

      • Re:People already sharing tips (Score:5, Insightful)

        by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Monday March 01, 2021 @03:20AM (#61110356) Journal

        Your comment makes no sense. "Police" aren't a unified entity. It's is entirely possible for a police team in Detroit to be underfunded while a police team in New York already has body cams, and is buying robot dogs.

        • GP's comment makes sense: Police needs to be defunded to a fraction of their current budget everywhere.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Junta ( 36770 )

            I feel like this is a frequently trotted out talking point that misses the mark.

            I think the popular sentiment is that defending the police would somehow de fang them. However, in nearly all the horrible incidents, it's not because the police have overwhelming resources, it's because an officer or a few with handguns do the wrong thing. Or even just using their bare hands. A low funded police force is, if anything, more likely to have bad officers without adequate oversight put into panic situations for lack

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by Altus ( 1034 )

              Just make the misconduct payouts come out of the police budget. Problem solved.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Chaset ( 552418 )

                I like the idea, but it needs improvement - just having it from the "police budget" will collectively incentivize them to hide/obscure/obstruct any investigations.

                How about this...
                Make it come out of the paycheck of those responsible, from top to bottom, in equal parts.
                i.e. if the chain of command is (hypothetically)
                line officer who made the mistake -- Sargent -- captain -- division chief -- police chief,
                there are 5 people responsible, each have to pay 16% (1/6) with the rest coming from the salaries of all

          • GP's comment makes sense: Police needs to be defunded to a fraction of their current budget everywhere.

            That is assuming the antecedent. Furthermore, you are wrong, if you defund the police, crime will increase.

            • > Furthermore, you are wrong, if you defund the police, crime will increase.

              That doesn't makes any sense. By that logic, we should put absolutely all our resources into policing to reduce crime to zero. There's obviously a balancing point. Currently, the police is "overweight".

              I'm not arguing for removing police altogether. However, the overreach in budget, time and laws is a problem virtually everywhere.

              • Are you saying that there is a point where, if you add more police it will result in more crime?

                • Did you hear about George Floyd? It was a rather big thing last summer. Killed in broad daylight while people were begging for the murderer to stop. Oh yeah, and the killer was a police. There's about 1100 cases of death by the US police per year.

                  Heard about "civil forfeiture" aka police racketeering? Last I checked, to the tune of billions.

                  Would fewer police result in fewer of these cases? Yes, I think so.

                  • I'll be honest, that isn't the worst statistical analysis I've seen this year, but it's very close. Wow I hope you don't take your own comment seriously.

    • Yeah, this is why they want to censor the internet. All human interaction must be tightly monitored and controlled.

    • Once the cops have them it'll be a felony to mess with one.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by vlad30 ( 44644 )
      It will only take a bit in the workshop to repair and replace instead of months to train a live dog which also needs care and feeding and only wants to work with one person. It also will be improved upon to fix weak points

      • More likely, it will be promoted to "officer robot dog", and looking at it in an unapproved way will mean you're immediately riddled with bullets by the other robots in the swarm, especially if their image recognition system fails to classify you as a true human being.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Are they waterproof? A bucket of water might be a good self defence tool.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Falos ( 2905315 )

        One remark points out they'll surely be sealed for unpressurized water (rain), but pressurized water (incl submersion) might work.

        A good net seems ideal, not sure those are readily available. Maybe someone will do a guide on how to work twine or duct tape into something useful, even tie cloth/blankets. They're built with strong motors to trying forcing itself out, but no way the AI can untangle anything, or a remote operator.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Lasers might be effective against the cameras from a distance.

          Actually a basic "tactical" torch (flashlight) would probably work. Many of these cameras can't cope with rapidly changing brightness levels.

    • "If you're armed, shoot center-of-mass as normal".

    • New use for a can of coke...

      I remember a story about a salesman demonstrating a new electric cash register to a hotel chain. The hotel VP asks if it will pass the "coke test". Salesman doesn't know what the "coke test" is, but answers "yes" (what else can a salesman do). The VP pulls out a can of coke, pops the tab, and dumps it into the very expensive hand built prototype.

      Even after hundreds of hours of tech time, the prototype never worked right again.

  • These guys make awesome stuff... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by olsmeister ( 1488789 ) on Sunday February 28, 2021 @08:41PM (#61109698)
    https://youtu.be/fn3KWM1kuAw [youtu.be]
  • Deja vu, in 1984, in a movie. Scary.

  • Oh goody, more police militarization (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Sunday February 28, 2021 @08:47PM (#61109724)
    the problem with police militarization is that it encourages cops to think of themselves as warriors. As people whose job it is to kill. This isn't my observation, it comes from a YouTuber named "Beau Of The Fifth Column" [youtube.com].

    I mean, give me a bunch of software at work and I'm gonna want to use it. Now try doing that with military grade weapons....

    • Generally shooting at people makes them think that. Defuse a situation, throw flowers at them.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      Actually, a dog like this will allow the police to talk to suspects and defuse a situation. Because they have the option to fall back, press the remote control button and sic the robo-dog on them.

      • Let's imagine the robo dog has all these sci-fi features it doesn't actually have and it can use non lethal means.

        If it's a hostage situation congrats, you just got your hostages killed.

        If the perps were well enough armed to make the robo dog worth using congrats, you just lost a $500k piece of machinery.

        The only place robots fit in policing is bomb defusal. This is not that.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by PPH ( 736903 )

          If it's a hostage situation ...

          Very rare.

          If the perps were well enough armed ...

          This is why we give cops M16s.

          Most of what we need robo dogs (or real dogs) for are dealing with non compliant suspects. That's not a capability robo-dogs have. Yet. But give them time. Version 2 will be more capable, based on field experience.

          • If the perps were well enough armed ...

            This is why we give cops M16s.

            An M16 is NOT "well armed". It's a glorified .22, and won't give you much (if any) advantage unless you're shooting at someone more than a hectometer away. Which you shouldn't be doing if you're a cop....

            If you want "well armed" police, give them a .40 caliber pistol (pretty much any model on the market will work) or a shotgun. Or an M14, if you really want them to have a reasonably powerful rifle (though why a cop should need a rifl

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Junta ( 36770 )

          If the perps were well enough armed to make the robo dog worth using congrats, you just lost a $500k piece of machinery.

          If a single person has a handgun, that may well be enough to make the 'dog' worth using, and while it can shoot the machine, the machine is probably reparable at a relatively low cost. If they are armed enough to utterly destroy the machine beyond repair, well they wouldn't be sending a random patrol into that, they'd be doing SWAT. I don't think they consider this robot a substitute for SWAT.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Junta ( 36770 )

          If it's a hostage situation congrats, you just got your hostages killed.

          Or the opposite. In the article they cited that they used it to surveil a suspected ongoing hostage situation. They used the robot to check and see that the perpetrators were gone. Imagine that their choice is, instead, to go in with people armed with guns. If the suspects are gone and an officer is *expecting* them to still be there, they could easily mistake victim for perpetrator with bad result. With the detachment of the only thing the suspects being able to shoot at being a remote controlled robot,

      • As long as they don't arm the robot...

    • The idea came from Radley Balko, who wrote "Rise of the Warrior Cop".

    • I basically agree with what you said, though I think it's often the other way around, with some people who think that way wanting to become cops. I am not a fan of giving military surplus to the police either, which seems still could happen with "defunding". But I'm having a bit of trouble getting "militarization" out of what is described in TFS. It sounds more like an option to lessen the odds of one of the people described above from getting into a situation where they might do more harm than good.

    • Robots offer STANDOFF. Standoff is not inherently militarization and by removing personnel from high threat areas permits them to deal with situations more methodically.

    • People figured that out before You Tube even existed...

  • Have you ever tried to speech someone with a weapon? I'd rather have a bot

  • And now we know why Boston Dynamics kicked up such a stink about Spots Rampage, where they attached a paintball gun to one of these robots and let people control it.

  • Imagine dozens of packs of 10 or 12 of these, running together, in Washington.

    Hope none of them wanders into the Capitol Building. /s

  • Spot is very cool. He's also big, noisy and bright yellow. I have trouble believing there's not a device out there with similar surveillance capabilities that's maybe the size of a guinea pig (and with a correspondingly smaller price tag) that would attract less attention from those being surveilled.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      Well, it gets a different paint job for police application.

      But I don't think this is designed for 'stealthy', it's designed to make clear that there is some sort of police presence. Like how patrol cars are clearly marked and have big flashing lights on them. You see one, you know that you've been recorded and the footage is already saved miles away and there's nothing you can do about the footage already taken. To give police a way to announce and converse with nearby people.

      I'm sure they have plenty of mo

  • Inspector Clouseau: "Does your dog bite?" Desk reception person: "No" Inspector Clouseau: "You said your dog did not bite!" Desk reception person: "That is not my dog".
  • Yes, AOC, it's a robotic surveillance drone. That's exactly the point. You should be applauding this. The faster this and quadcopter cameras are following every single cop on the beat, the faster we stop racist policing. This would stop the racist cop schtick faster than a hundred billion dollars of sensitivity training. No more "oopsie me and every other cop within 100 yards accidentally turned off our body cams whoa another brown person is dead how did that happen tee tee he must have had a gun!".

    The

    • Of course some hypersensitive fool thought it was trolling because they're weakminded, but monitoring everything police do is healthy and the only way to make them accountable.

  • There must be a way to put those things down. Though I'm sure the cops don't take kindly to that kind of action.

  • A robot can be used expendably where a meatbag will feel fear and stress. Humanity is responsible for bad policing and all bad decisions.

    The less "humanity" in our societies the better they can be. There is more hate than love, more bigotry than decency, more evil than good and all due to emotions. Humanity exists but is not more admirable than a rock, it just is what it is and that's usually bad.

  • Very expensive!

  • Will be the first to call in the drones if people were after her. I mean you saw how she acted when Congress was breached. They are putting up fencing and increasing the Capitol police by 1000 .. no "defund police" when it comes to the Capitol where their asses sit.

  • Boston dynamics have said that they will "...be pairing the dog with a nose module which can detect odours important to their customers.

    There's been high demand for donut sensor from our police department clients. We'll be releasing a proof of concept before the end of the quarter."

  • only allowed off in robot dog parks.

  • Boston Dynamics is stupid (Score:3, Insightful)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Sunday February 28, 2021 @11:24PM (#61110006)

    If they want Congress buy-in (which they need, lest they get banned) they need to tell congress that the robots can protect them from their constituents.

  • 70lbs isn't that heavy. A couple of people (or one strapping one) could easily just pick it up and carry it away. -$74000 in property taxes.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q4Fry ( 1322209 )

      70lbs isn't that heavy. A couple of people (or one strapping one) could easily just pick it up and carry it away. -$74000 in property taxes.

      Yeah! Not that much harder than that time I stole a crate of GPS beacons from the FBI!

      I still can't figure out how they found me.

  • "empowering a robot to do police work could have implications for bias" Maybe the programming has bias that could be checked in the code. yes a number of factors can make it difficult to ID people for various reasons but this robot relies on human operators for now and should not be a problem OTOH when confronted with a person with a gun the rule of shoot first to save my life doesn't apply with a robot and for the perpetrator shooting a robot just means another one could be sent.

  • They are also selling their robot dog to oil companies, municipal governments, and health companies. Actually they are selling the robot dog to anyone who wants to pay the $75000 asking price.

  • "The Mechanical Hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live in its gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the firehouse...Nights when things got dull, which was every night, the men slid down the brass poles, and set the ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the hound and let loose rats in the fire house areaway. Three seconds later the game was done, the rat caught half across the areaway, gripped in gentle paws while a four-inch hollow stee

  • Why is there community paid for police but not community paid for healthcare in america ?

  • People being people, these robots are going to be vandalized. And then the police will insist the poor mechanical doggies should be able to protect themselves. And then the police will push a little further, and say they should be able to protect other expensive police property as well. And so on, and so on.

  • Police have had tracked robots with remote controlled arms for 20+ years now. They have armed the robots with pistols, shotguns, bean bag guns, Tasers, and in at least one case with an explosive. Some of the already existing robots can deploy devices to distract or disorient subjects (flash-bang, tear gas). The police also already have in their bag of tricks many different models of remote controlled self propelled devices with microphones and cameras. Some are much smaller than this, some can already open

  • When a police robot stops a criminally operated robot that has stolen from an amazon delivery drone.

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