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Robotics

Singapore Police Deploy Snitch Bots To Test Searching for 'Undesirable Social Behaviors' (gizmodo.com) 155

Posted by EditorDavid from the robo-cops dept.
"If you're wandering around Singapore anytime soon, take some time to wave hi to your friendly neighborhood snitch bot," writes Gizmodo: Singapore's Home Team Science and Technology Agency (HTX) will be deploying two robots named "Xavier" that the agency says use cameras with a 360-degree field of vision and analytics software to detect "undesirable social behaviors" in real time.

First reported by Business Insider, the robots are designed to detect activities such as public smoking, violation of pandemic restrictions (i.e., groups of more than five people), and illegally selling goods on the street. Other behaviors the agency said the robots can snitch on include the use of motorized vehicles or motorcycles on pedestrian walkways and "improperly parked bicycles." The Xavier robots roll around on a "patrol route pre-configured in advance by public officers," though they can deviate as necessary to avoid slamming into pedestrians or other obstacles. The plan is for the two robots to relay reports of such activity to a central police hub as well as confront violators directly with warning messages, with the first three weeks of deployment starting on Sept. 5 in Toa Payoh Central.
The three weeks are a "trial period," reports ZDNet. But they also note that the program includes "an interactive dashboard where public officers can receive real-time information from and be able to monitor and control multiple robots simultaneously."

One official said in a public statement that "The deployment of ground robots will help to augment our surveillance and enforcement resources."

ZDNet offers some context: Seeing robots being used in Singapore is not uncommon. Last year, Singapore deployed Boston Dynamics' four-legged droids, dubbed Spot, to its parks, garden, and nature reserves to remind people about social distancing. A fleet of Lightstrike robots was then rolled out at one of Singapore's general hospitals in a bid to thoroughly disinfect hospital rooms of pathogens. More recently in May, the Singapore government launched a one-year trial of using autonomous robots to facilitate on-demand food and grocery deliveries.
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Singapore Police Deploy Snitch Bots To Test Searching for 'Undesirable Social Behaviors' More

Singapore Police Deploy Snitch Bots To Test Searching for 'Undesirable Social Behaviors'

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  • I rather have these in PUBLIC areas, than getting randomly being shot on the street. Oh wait, I guess we don't see being shot and maimed/killed as an invasion of privacy, so we're against it. Am I right? Come on man, we can regulate/random audit the bots and also have severe penalties for the one-off situations that someone abuses it. We can have strict laws that ensure that evidence from the bots can only be allowed to solve ultra-violent crimes and rape. I don't see what the bots can do as being worse th

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fazig ( 2909523 )

      I rather have these in PUBLIC areas, than getting randomly being shot on the street.
      [...]
      We can have strict laws that ensure that evidence from the bots can only be allowed to solve ultra-violent crimes and rape.

      Hah! Thanks for the good laugh.

      These things have never gone well in human history, because at some point you have some kind of asshole either in the government or in the institutions that do something highly immoral with the information obtain there.
      Why would it work now? What's the safeguard

    • It's Singapore. Nothing they do there has any particular relevance to things people do anywhere else.

      https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]

      Singapore even engages in judicial caning:

      https://singaporelegaladvice.c... [singaporelegaladvice.com]

  • Snitches get stiches (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Carewolf ( 581105 ) on Monday September 13, 2021 @02:52AM (#61790509) Homepage

    I assume stabbing snitch bots would be considered undesirable social behavior?

    • I assume stabbing snitch bots would be considered undesirable social behavior?

      This is why you can only do this in places like Singapore. Here in the UK, they will all end up at the bottom of the nearest canal within the first 48 hours.

      They will need to be able to defend themselves before they are any use in most western countries, and that is a whole different kind of police robot. Personally I don't see it happening anytime soon.

      • Defend themselves? Ha, the police robot is going to get disabled so fast. I hope they film that because it would definitely go viral.

      • "This is why you can only do this in places like Singapore. Here in the UK, they will all end up at the bottom of the nearest canal within the first 48 hours"

          Heh, in the US:

        BOOM BOOM BOOM SPLASH SPLASH CRASH.

        Wouldn't even take 48 hours.

  • Be afraid to go out in public because you might get shot or raped, or be afraid to go out in public because a robot might film you? I'm supposed to believe some people rather be raped & murdered than seen by a robot?

    • City of Chicago has tens of thousands of cameras, and yet the violent crime has gone up in last 25 years. The cameras don't stop bullets or raping dicks. They do take away something though, and maybe you should learn what societies with constant government surveillance do to their citizens. You might even be interested to know they even shoot, rape and torture their citizens too among other things.

      • Crime is in fact lower in the areas with high surveillance, most of those crimes occur outside the view of cameras. You know cameras only cover a imperceptibly small area of Chicago right? Chicago is 6 billion square feet. A camera can cover less than 1000 square feet. So even 10,000 cameras can only cover one half-millionth of Chicago. Basically, they need about 1 million cameras to have a meaningful impact on Chicago crime. It might be reducible using drone patrols I guess. References: https://www.chica [chicagotribune.com]

        • Oh, you're starting to see the picture. Cameras == robots, same thing, same result

          • Iggymanz, I think backslashdot is actually saying that a) where a camera is present, evidence shows a drop in crime and b) a drone on patrol provides more coverage than a fixed camera. Give those two theorems (backed by data), backslashdot suggests that these robots on patrol would likely help decrease crime in the areas they patrol. Not eliminate crime, as noted by backslashdot's final paragraph, but reduce it. Put another way: cameras do help, so anything that increases camera coverage would help more.

            • But that's a lie, evidence here in Chicago shows violent crime steadily increasing even as they now have tens of thousands of cameras. You need better facts, sounds like you're swallowing agenda driven camera marketing spew.

              • The violence overall is increasing. But if you read the citations provided by backslashdot, it is increasing notably slower in places with high density of cameras.

        • Iggy is just afraid they will catch him buying or selling dope.

          • Wrong, I neither use nor sell any illegal thing. I know historically what happens when government has ubiquitous surveillance. You must be young and ignorant of history, unbelievable the stupidity of people here.

    • I think I can handle a five foot tall rapist wearing flip-flops.
    • I would rather not be stopped by a snitch robot when I am fleeing from a rapist because it finds someone running for her life "socially undesirable".

  • OK, I think I'm going to build a bot that detects durian, and sell it to Singapore. Every bus and train will have their durian protector. Who's in?

    • OK, I think I'm going to build a bot that detects durian, and sell it to Singapore. Every bus and train will have their durian protector. Who's in?

      Too late. I just sold them an app where they can film and snitch on each other. No robots needed.

  • the robots get mugged, spray painted and crippled, unless these things are powerful and able to defend itself it will be trashed
  • so if public smoking is banned in the city, where can you actually smoke? Singapore is pretty dense populated, I would suspect that inside building a fire alarm would go off if you would smoke, so you can only smoke on your balcony and maybe an car parking lot (that one might be considered public)?
    • i looked it up. its pretty tightly regulated. so you can smoke inside your car, but only if you make sure no smoke gets out (e.g. all windows closed). for offices etc. you can only smoke in designated areas: https://www.nea.gov.sg/our-ser... [nea.gov.sg]

      • I was going to shake my head at Singapore, but even as an on-and-off smoker (thus biased), I must admit that their regulation at least reads pretty reasonable: the constant being "don't smoke where other people can't get away from your smoke". Sounds reasonable to me.

        Even the car and windows thing only applies if the smoke would otherwise be expelled out of your car window into nonsmoking areas.

        Of course I don't have any clue as to how well this translates into practice...

        • In the closet, lights out, under a blanket, with an air filter..

          Why do they even still sell tobacco there?

          • Actually you can, apparently, smoke in a park, on the streets, or on a sidewalk. Just not where people *need* to gather, like cafes, public offices, bus stations etc.

            I fail to see the problem.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Bert64 ( 520050 )

          Yes smoking is one of those things that directly affects other people.
          Anyone nearby is forced to inhale the smoke even if they don't want to, it is at the very least highly unpleasant for non smokers and at worse very harmful to someone who already has breathing difficulties. It can also cause those who are trying to give up smoking to relapse.

          While i'm generally in favor of freedom, the line has to be drawn where it causes harm to others.

          • Yes smoking is one of those things that directly affects other people.

            [...]

            While i'm generally in favor of freedom, the line has to be drawn where it causes harm to others.

            Yeah, well, it's a bit of a mixed package, I'm afraid. Difficult to make a blanket discussion out of.

            Everything affects other people, to varying degrees. It's one thing to be forced to spend the day in a crowded public office queue where half the people are smoking; a whole other thing to wait at a loosely populated bus stop where one guy smokes. Add to that that most smokers I know of (and I know many, most of my friends used to smoke at a certain period of my life) will go out of their way to not blow smo

          • It can also cause those who are trying to give up smoking to relapse.

            ...also, as a nonsmoker turned smoker turned nonsmoker turned nonsmoker... etc, this is a BS argument. Everything causes a relapse to someone who actually wants to.smoke: good jazz, the shit in the morning, your coffee break, compiling a linux kernel, your favorite pub with mediocre beer and a stained pool table.

            Holding a bypasser smoker responsible for that isn't fair. It's more an expression of jealousy because that smoker still gets to enjoy his cigarette, while this trying-to-be-nonsmoker doesn't.

    • so if public smoking is banned in the city, where can you actually smoke?

      In your house where you won't be effecting other people

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Bert64 ( 520050 )

        People often tend to smoke outside their homes, because even smokers often don't want the smoke inside their homes. If you smoke outside - eg on a balcony, the smoke will often drift into other people's properties.

  • Drones for good (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Evil Atheist ( 2484676 ) on Monday September 13, 2021 @05:13AM (#61790767)
    I've just finished a demo to investors of a drone that rescues people stuck down holes.

    It went down well.

  • ... the robots are designed to detect activities such as public smoking, violation of pandemic restrictions (i.e., groups of more than five people), and illegally selling goods on the street. Other behaviors the agency said the robots can snitch on include the use of motorized vehicles or motorcycles on pedestrian walkways and “improperly parked bicycles.”

    So, this robot is basically doing all the basic mundane light policing stuff that human police officers on foot patrol all over the planet have already been doing for centuries. Why is this news? All this changes is that police forces will now be able to shift human officers from foot patrol to more pressing and important tasks and leave the boring and mundane stuff up to robots.

  • Would snitchbot consider someone lighting it on fire to be antisocial behavior because I don't.
  • Singapore has always been a authoritarian state with a similar stance as Communist China. Indeed the country is mostly run by a ethnic Chinese minority.

  • Chewing gum is an thing they look for

  • I guess it's becoming more and more obvious that Skynet will speak Mandarin.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday September 13, 2021 @10:25AM (#61791391)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • >"Privacy is this magical sauce that allows everyone to get their way well enough that we can all get along."

      I *LOVE* that entire posting you just made. Wish I had modpoints. i also wish more people understood just how important privacy is.

  • 'public smoking, violation of pandemic restrictions (i.e., groups of more than five people), and illegally selling goods on the street. Other behaviors the agency said the robots can snitch on include the use of motorized vehicles or motorcycles on pedestrian walkways and "improperly parked bicycles." '

    These are more commonly known as misdemeanors or public offenses.

    • These are more commonly known as misdemeanors or public offenses.

      Keep in mind, we're talking about Singapore where chewing gum can get you jail time

  • Robots have come for the beat cop.

    This might not be a bad thing

  • I sit from afar, raise my finger and point it in your direction. With a mighty sound I go

    "HA HA HA!"

  • ... will the bots be looking for in Singapore. My guess is that flipping the bird to the bot will be on the list of undesirable social behaviors---possibly #1 on the list.

  • Looking forward to when they deploy this to the US, and Youtube videos of them being set on fire, thrown into water fountains, thrown from the tops of parking garages, tipped on their sides and used as skateboard props, etc... become available.

  • Punishments or rewards are the mark of a lazy leader. They never investigate the reasons as to why people are doing what they do. And all punishments end up doing is breaking down any discourse and increase hostility towards any authority/police you have.

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