Should We Be Allowed To Kick Robots? (wired.com) 126
"Seen in the wild, robots often appear cute and nonthreatening. This doesn't mean we shouldn't be hostile," argues a new article in Wired, reporting on what appears to be a pre-meditated kicking of a Knightscope K5 patrol robot in a parking lot in California:
K5's siblings, it turns out, don't fare much better. In 2017 a drunk man attacked a K5 in a Mountain View parking lot. A few months later a group of angry protestors in San Francisco covered another one in a tarp, pushed it to the ground, and smeared barbecue sauce on it. Stacey Stephens, Knightscope's executive vice president, wouldn't say how many have been seriously damaged. "I don't want to challenge people," he says, afraid any number will inspire -- perhaps compel -- more miscreants to seek out K5s. (Stephens did specify that Knightscope prosecutes "to the fullest extent of the law," often pursuing felony charges for damaged K5s.)
Hard numbers or not, the assaults will continue -- that's not the question... The question is: Do we care...? [A]s an otherwise law-abiding citizen...all I could think as I watch and rewatch the security video from August 3 is: Way to go, dude. Because K5 is not a friendly robot, even if the cutesy blue lights are meant to telegraph that it is. It's not there to comfort senior citizens or teach autistic children. It exists to collect data -- data about people's daily habits and routines. While Knightscope owns the robots and leases them to clients, the clients own the data K5 collects. They can store it as long as they want and analyze it however they want. K5 is an unregulated security camera on wheels, a 21st-century panopticon.
The true power of K5 isn't to watch you -- it's to make you police yourself. It's designed to be at eye level, to catch your attention. Stephens likens it to a police car sitting on the side of the road: It makes everyone hyperaware of their surroundings. Even if you aren't speeding, you break, turn down the radio, and put your hands at 10 and 2. The debate over the proper treatment of robots can sometimes sound like the debate over violent videogames. Perhaps acting on violent impulses without hurting real-life humans is healthy, cathartic. Or it might be turning us into a race of psychopaths. Unlike the characters in videogames, though, robots don't exist virtually. In the case of K5 bots, they intrude, without permission, into the most mundane of activities: walking down the sidewalk, parking your car...
It is a sham, an ersatz impression of power that should be pushed to its limits -- right down onto the hard parking lot floor.
Hard numbers or not, the assaults will continue -- that's not the question... The question is: Do we care...? [A]s an otherwise law-abiding citizen...all I could think as I watch and rewatch the security video from August 3 is: Way to go, dude. Because K5 is not a friendly robot, even if the cutesy blue lights are meant to telegraph that it is. It's not there to comfort senior citizens or teach autistic children. It exists to collect data -- data about people's daily habits and routines. While Knightscope owns the robots and leases them to clients, the clients own the data K5 collects. They can store it as long as they want and analyze it however they want. K5 is an unregulated security camera on wheels, a 21st-century panopticon.
The true power of K5 isn't to watch you -- it's to make you police yourself. It's designed to be at eye level, to catch your attention. Stephens likens it to a police car sitting on the side of the road: It makes everyone hyperaware of their surroundings. Even if you aren't speeding, you break, turn down the radio, and put your hands at 10 and 2. The debate over the proper treatment of robots can sometimes sound like the debate over violent videogames. Perhaps acting on violent impulses without hurting real-life humans is healthy, cathartic. Or it might be turning us into a race of psychopaths. Unlike the characters in videogames, though, robots don't exist virtually. In the case of K5 bots, they intrude, without permission, into the most mundane of activities: walking down the sidewalk, parking your car...
It is a sham, an ersatz impression of power that should be pushed to its limits -- right down onto the hard parking lot floor.
give me a break (Score:5, Insightful)
Brake
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I read is as "break" in the psychological sense of the word.
When you see a cop car it breaks your mental state and you use the brakes to slow down.
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If the cop is watching (80% of the time they're not) if they see my brake lights it'll only confirm to them that I was speeding, and that I panicked. Or if they're only partially paying attention, my brake lights might be the thing that makes them notice me.
I'd rather have them notice the idjits behind me when they flash their brake lights.
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Should we be allowed to kick Wired "editors"?
It's their property (Score:2, Interesting)
You generally need no permission to use cameras on your own fucking property. Much like the ones on the security system the clickbait author almost certainly has.
If anyone happens to see Sarah Harrison working on a laptop or tablet, do society a favour and throw it on the floor.
Re: It's their property (Score:2)
So punch the robot, I tell you! Test the strength of your sociopolitical convictions on this lunk of inorganic matter! Itâ(TM)s not even a Nazi. Itâ(TM)s a few feet of plastic and electrical wiring. It doesnâ(TM)t have feelings. It doesnâ(TM)t register pain. It doesnâ(TM)t have ambitions, desires, or regrets.
So throw Sarah's laptop on the floor and stomp it, I tell you: Test the strength of your sociopolitical convictions on this lunk of inorganic matter! Itâ(TM)s not even a Nazi. Itâ(TM)s a few inches of plastic and electrical wiring. It doesnâ(TM)t have feelings. It doesnâ(TM)t register pain. It doesnâ(TM)t have ambitions, desires, or regrets.
To be honest, I'm surprised she has the intelligence to operate a laptop. She certainly lacks the self-awareness t
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No that quote is a *good thing*
Free license to key her car and break her windows.
In a civil lawsuit, she would be attempting to convince the judge she was harmed financially by the destruction of her property, while publicly stating she fully believes each of us has the right to destroy public property and that it doesn't cause harm.
So her argument will boil down to the fact she wasn't harmed.
The other party will also be arguing they caused no harm.
If she agrees no damage was caused and there is no way for
Re: It's their property (Score:5, Interesting)
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"They largely exist to harass the public for the benefit of the likes of Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison"
Oh look, another suburban tech-bro "libertarian" who doesn't need no police! How original.
Re: It's their property (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: It's their property (Score:4, Interesting)
Throwing false dilemmas and straw men out is just about as fascist-tech-bro as it gets.
Saying the police "largely exist to harass the public for the benefit of the likes of Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison" already brands you in such an unfavorable light that no about of false dilemmas and straw men will make you look any worse in anyone's eyes. I sure hope your lack of wisdom and critical thinking merely comes from being very young.
Re: It's their property (Score:2)
Re: It's their property (Score:2, Flamebait)
Go away, dimwit.
Re: It's their property (Score:5, Insightful)
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There's a big difference between being seen by people in public vs. your actions and locations being immortalized in a database by police (and who knows who else) to be used for any reason they deem fit.
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There's a qualitative difference between "somebody might see me" and "I'm under 24/7 effective surveillance". In the past, even the most tyrannical of states could not do the latter because both the surveillance itself and actually doing anything with the information had to be done manually. These robots seek to solve the former problem, and our friends at Google are busy at w
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It doesn't have feelings. It doesn't register pain. It doesn't have ambitions, desires, or regrets.
And it absolutely will not stop until you are dead, Sarah!
Man vs. Food! (Score:2)
A few months later a group of angry protestors in San Francisco covered another one in a tarp, pushed it to the ground, and smeared barbecue sauce on it.
So how did it taste . . . ? And did he get a T-shirt and a place on the wall, for eating a robot in under an hour . . . ?
They are private property (Score:5, Insightful)
Like most of the internet, what passes for news and opinion on Wired 8s in a heavy downward spiral.
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OTOH if your car is filled with cameras tracking me we may need to have a discussion.
Thge Bicentennial Man (Score:2)
All over again.
there is no release, only entrainment (Score:5, Insightful)
The heightened rate of physical spousal abuse experienced by partners of police and enlisted military teaches us that violence begets violence.
Beating up on robots teaches you to beat things up.
If the robots are being used to commit crimes against humanity then by all means destroy them, but the virtue is not in the destruction. It's in stopping others from using them to do wrong.
(Obviously, skynet would shift the boundaries around quite a bit, but we're not there yet.)
Re:there is no release, only entrainment (Score:4, Interesting)
I reckon the article author had this in mind:
https://youtu.be/dKjCWfuvYxQ?t=70 [youtu.be]
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Really? That's the lesson you get from that?
What it shows me is that violent thugs are often also misogynists. Like the arseholes earlier in the thread wanting to break the article author's laptop.
Re: there is no release, only entrainment (Score:1)
The people making those comments are keyboard warriors. If they ever encounter conflict or aggression in the physical world they hide or flee.
Re:there is no release, only entrainment (Score:4, Insightful)
What it shows me is that violent thugs are often also misogynists. Like the arseholes earlier in the thread wanting to break the article author's laptop.
I read at least one of those comments, and could not tell from the content whether they were misogynists, only that they advocate violent solutions to stupid non-problems. That's sufficiently deplorable, but not necessarily woman-hating. They might well react the same way to an article written by a man. Probably wouldn't be quite so mouthy about it, but there's multiple potential explanations for that, too.
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I first object against violating private property and then say you should vandalise her laptop. An accurate reading would assume it's showing the absurdity of her argument by example ...
In her article she favourably recounts past vandalism and calls for more, there's just no way to read it as an outright call for vandalism.
See the difference deary?
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Vis-a-vis, the not-unheard of, but nevertheless rare instances of wife-on-husband spousal abuse.
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It's not really all that rare.
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1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men have experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner.
https://ncadv.org/statistics [ncadv.org]
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It is compared to the opposite, but really we'll never know the real figures because how many men wouldn't report such a thing, and if they did, how many would get taken seriously? "What do you mean, your wife beat you? Are you a pussy or something? Get out of here, we don't have time for jokes!"
Even Jezabel admits it - with some interesting numbers, like 70 percent of non-reciprocated violence is performed by women. And they apparently approve https://jezebel.com/have-you-e... [jezebel.com]
Yes, Women do perform physical harm to men. It is socially sponsored, and considered acceptable. There is almost never punishment, so they know they can do as they wish. Many find it rather funny.
Re: there is no release, only entrainment (Score:2)
Don't forget wife on wife violence.
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If you are going to go to idiotic extremes, lets also ban squashing mosquitoes, hammering nails, chopping wood, hunting, fishing, competitive sports (especially martial arts), videogames. Don't forget military, they actually teach you to attack actual human beings.
People can tell a difference between robot and human - attacking robots does not result in attacking humans. You are trying to infantilize everyone so you can control them.
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If you are going to go to idiotic extremes,
I hadn't planned on it, but show me how it's done!
[...]
Thanks!
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Not enough to restore faith in humanity, but it's a bright spot!
from the throw-caution-to-the-wind dept (Score:4, Insightful)
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Psycho (Score:2)
Re:Psycho (Score:5, Insightful)
allowing corporations to build the global 24/7 panopticon is not OK. **THAT**'s pretty fucking simple.
fuck all you idiot propertarians and the ayn rand you rode in on. property is not sacred.
Re: Psycho (Score:2)
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So we should destroy your property and you are ok with that? Oh no? You meant other people's property because you are a special snowflake? Got it.
A lot depends on where you are located, and how you are brought up.
In Texas, Property > Human Life. That's how they were raised, and it seems pretty logical to them. You kill someone for stepping in your yard, and you're a hero.
In a lot of other places, a neighbor damages your mailbox, so you blow his head off, you'll be arrested, and charged with at least manslaughter. Up here in the North, My neighor damages my property, I can prosecute him without murdering him. Weird, amirite?
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You kill someone for stepping in your yard, and you're a hero.
What if he stepped into your daughter's bedroom in the middle of the night after breaking into your house?
The real world is not that black and white.
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You kill someone for stepping in your yard, and you're a hero.
What if he stepped into your daughter's bedroom in the middle of the night after breaking into your house? The real world is not that black and white.
Is the yard your daughter's bedroom? Is the road going by your house your daughter's bedroom?
There is a world of difference between inside your house and outside.
And you spend too much time thinking about my daughter's bedroom.
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Is the yard your daughter's bedroom? Is the road going by your house your daughter's bedroom?
Assuming you aren't familiar with the common location of a bedroom, I actually said "after breaking into your house". Don't be intentionally obtuse.
And you spend too much time thinking about my daughter's bedroom.
You are free to declare your house a gun free zone and I wish you the best of luck, that's on you. I'm concerned about the safety of my own family, yours is not my responsibility.
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Is the yard your daughter's bedroom? Is the road going by your house your daughter's bedroom?
Assuming you aren't familiar with the common location of a bedroom, I actually said "after breaking into your house". Don't be intentionally obtuse.
Pardon me - I made the foolish assumption that you were asking a question that had anything at all to do with my point that in Texas you can kill someone simply for being in your yard, and be hailed as a hero.
And you spend too much time thinking about my daughter's bedroom.
You are free to declare your house a gun free zone and I wish you the best of luck, that's on you. I'm concerned about the safety of my own family, yours is not my responsibility.
What the hell kind of discussion tactics do you have?
Point is before you lamely turned this into another second amendment argument, you inadvertently proved that In Texas and some other places - property > life. .
As for my house being a gun free zone - while that doesn't have a thing to do wit
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So don't use parking lots that use these things, or vote/run appropriately and get laws against them passed.
Civil society has produced enormous benefits. There are proper ways to accomplish things like this. The modern "fuck all you all, and I should be able to back that up with violence" is concerning.
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So don't use parking lots that use these things, or vote/run appropriately and get laws against them passed.
You miss a giant problem here: Everyone else.
What companies like this are doing is normalizing surveillance robots. They're selecting places that most people want to go enough that they'll put up with "well, it's private property and they have a right to watch their own property, and I really want to go, soooo....."
The problem with this is that it does indeed condition people to be ok with this. Once that's 51% of the voting population, it doesn't matter what you or I think. When the local government wants
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"You miss a giant problem here: Everyone else."
That there is what people mean when they say "special snowflake." I don't think kicking some robots is going to help you much. Enacting some laws governing bribes, uh, campaign contributions, might though. Lots of other places have them.
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Robots Rules of Order (Score:2)
Re: Robots Rules of Order (Score:1)
3. Never Hipot test the robot when it is deploted in the field. Avoid exposing it to localized a EMP or directing HERF energy at it.
Anthropomorphising (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Anthropomorphising (Score:5, Funny)
Please stop with your logic. Logic destroys 99% of our articles.
Regards,
Wired Editors
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I find the side message more disturbing (Score:5, Insightful)
"The true power of K5 isn't to watch you -- it's to make you police yourself. It's designed to be at eye level, to catch your attention. Stephens likens it to a police car sitting on the side of the road: It makes everyone hyperaware of their surroundings. Even if you aren't speeding, you break, turn down the radio, and put your hands at 10 and 2."
That hyper awareness, that sudden burst of adrenaline, thats called fear, its a fight-or-flight physical response. Occurring too often, varying by intensity, can lead to physical problems and probably mental ones too. So does anyone else seem bothered that Stephens is wanting a Police State where the citizens are all walking around on egg shells afraid of being guilty of _something_? I mean there are thousands of ordinances on the books anymore. At any time you are probably violating 3 and dont even know it. So apparently Stephens thinks Nineteen-Eighty-Four was a road map for utopia. Whats next? Secret police walking around undercover looking for offenders?
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Whats next? Secret police walking around undercover looking for offenders?
Of course not, that's terribly inefficient. Social media and public data will be scraped to create lists and the problem people tracked in real time so they can be quickly and neatly disappeared. The "best" part about privatizing everything is the extrajudicial nature of it there is no due process, no rights, no presumption of innocence.
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A well-known, extremely tired lie that's popular with criminals who want to keep their conscience at bay. Most of us violate zero laws at a time, even if you include all the unenforceable/unconstitutional laws that technically haven't been taken off the books. And in reality, the only laws you have to obey are the ones which a judge and jury would be willing to punish you for.
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I literally jay-walk all the time when I cross the street in front of my house instead of walking to the corner. A median separates the direction of traffic so they could put up trees, so in order to go left from my house, I have to go to the break and do a u-turn. This happens to be a cross-walk for an elementary school. About 6yrs ago the first crossing guard was a retired cop who wanted to prevent people using the left turn lane during the times when kids are going to-from school, so he called someone
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"I literally jay-walk all the time when I cross the street in front of my house instead of walking to the corner."
That is called "crossing the street". I have no idea what the hell jay-walking is, but it is not "crossing the street".
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100+ years ago, "jay" was slang for an ignorantly foolish person. "Jaywalking" entered the vernacular due to public relations campaigns by automotive interest groups, that wanted the populace to accept stronger rights-of-way for vehicles on the road, rather than pedestrians on the road.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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I meant that to say "100+ years ago in the U.S."
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Re: I find the side message more disturbing (Score:2)
I think the idling thing is about pollution, not safety.
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Car theft. There is a rash of it. Weve had a massive increase in car break-ins in the last 5 years. The cops say it is due to the massive opioid problem we have. So they pass an ordinance making it illegal to idle your car to reduce the number of stolen vehicles. Nextdoor is nothing but social media for “my car got broken into” security cam videos. They go through cars, if they find a overhead door remote they go in the house, if they find a car key they steal the car. In the winter they look fo
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Most of us violate zero laws at a time
Not quite true. [wsj.com] This is really interesting stuff though, you may want to dig a bit deeper.
Reason (Score:2)
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Completely wrong question (Score:4, Insightful)
The right question is "Should we be allowed to deploy this type of robot?". The right answer is "no". Citizens shouldn't be kicking it, because the police should already have impounded it, under laws that should have been passed years ago.
The same applies to other security cameras constantly recording any publicly owned space, or any space regularly offered for general public use.
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or any space regularly offered for general public use.
Most parking lots are not 'offered for general public use'. There's a sign setting forth the conditions. And the name of a towing company and security service who will impound your car, bicycle or rear end should you violate them.
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By abusing them and turning them into batteries? The only reason they kept them around was that apparently the human body can somehow generate more energy from the food it consumes than would otherwise be generated by just using the energy to create the food in the first place. But then I haven't seen the prequels, so perhaps I'm missing something from the translation to the movies.
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People attacking video cameras (Score:2)
...even walking ones, are either drunk or stupid.
Robots in public (Score:2)
I kind of feel like we should have similar laws regarding any robot that resemble 'dog leash laws.' ie: The robot needs to be accompanied by it's owner/agent at all times.
These things should be treated like something that needs adult supervision at all times.
At least for now. And a parking lot sure feels like a mostly public place.
If it's a private parking lot, then fences perhaps to make it inaccessible to the public seems appropriate before an unsupervised robot is permitted. Just like with a dog. A r
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To enlarge your point, there was a case where that same model of security robot ran over [bbc.com] a small boy. Since it was in a mall, encountering small children is not unexpected. Human supervisoin may be in order.
Oh jeez. (Score:2)
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if the machine is violating rights and privacy then sure, why not damage it? it's the same thing as shooting a drone pointing a camera into your bedroom window.
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violating rights and privacy
Is it on your property? Or someone else's? Or on public property? In the latter two cases, you have no privacy rights.
drone pointing a camera into your bedroom window
From public property? Close your damned blinds.
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no, that's not what the law says about standing on public property and pointing your binoculars at your neighbor's window. guess again. better yet, try it out and see what you get
Depends... (Score:2)
...do they honor the Three Laws of Robotics?
Audio enhancement (Score:2)
Even better, stick an audio player to the back of the thing. Let's see how friendly it seems when it rolls around screaming "EXTERMINATE! EX-TERM-I-NATE!!!"
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I think you should duct-tape a plunger to it as well.
not instructions manuals (Score:2)
Why kick It? (Score:2)
If you’re dead set on interfering with its operation, wouldn’t spray paint be more effective?
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I'm pretty sure (Score:2)
you can tie it to a tree without damaging it.
trashing (Score:2)
Breaking and damaging property in public, even your own, is violation of public peace.
Do whatever you want to robots in privacy, just do not troll us with disturbing videos
Re: only if it's a chris-bot 400 (pounds) (Score:5, Interesting)
Another new change is needed. Now that AC comments are tied to a logged-in account, downmods on the AC comments should count against the account. Accounts with low karma scores shoul not be allowed to comment anonymously.
Improving the /. moderation? ROFLMAO (Score:2)
Another new change is needed. Now that AC comments are tied to a logged-in account, downmods on the AC comments should count against the account. Accounts with low karma scores shoul not be allowed to comment anonymously.
Actually, I like your ideas and would even mod you up if I ever had a mod point to give. Might even chip in to fund such a project, if /. had such a funding model.
And yet I want to say that I think it would be a deeper fix to make moderation and karma symmetric. Rather than a single number, karma would have the same dimensions as moderation (though I think the dimensions need some improvement, too). Also, the display of both should be logarithmic.
Concrete example: Receiving funny mod points would increase y
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Can I drive down the street with a shotgun and shoot holes in people's houses?
I think the answer is no.
How about drones hovering over yours?
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While your concept is correct, upon a person being caught, they can be cited,
arrested for damaging property ( yes tape or even sticky note can be construed
as damaging someone else's property ) , possible jail at the time of arrest for
holding, and if it's public property, most likely fine and punishment of 1/2 a day
to a full day or more.
Now here is where it get's tricky, If something happened to someone while
the sticky note vision blocking was done, and the surveillance robot could have
provided assistance to
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yep a small town of about 30,000 with all the other towns much larger.
but my point was upon the person being caught. which will happen if there
is destruction and damage to the unit multiple times.
or it will cost to much to deal with, one or the other
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I've never kicked a garbage can,
most people put it out,
then bring it back in once its done
and I am in no mood to kick one
since my toe is important to me LOL
Re: Uh (Score:2)
What if the robot is annoying you? Can you physically push it away then? Is it OK to shout at it or act menacingly to scare it away, without making contact?
How annoying does a robot have to be before you can righteously defend yourself from it? Does the robot deserve the same respect you'd give a human, or something less? Interesting questions.
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You mean like some sex dolls? Which look human enough that they have photo shoots for them. I don't think so. They are a product, not a person. Unless you want to give all the wax statues in Madame Tussauds voting rights? I don't give a fuck how human it looks, I care if it can actually think. It can look like a brick but if it actually can pass the Turing test I would contemplating giving it voting rights. And then I would