Once hailed as the future of New York crime control, the “Digidog” is retiring prematurely. The New York Police Department (NYPD) will no longer use the Spot robot dog, manufactured by the US company Boston Dynamics, following a strong public backlash, city officials have confirmed. Indeed, the mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, has ordered that the controversial robot dubbed “Digidog”, being tested with the city police, be withdrawn from circulation, and that a contract of 94,200 dollars with Boston Dynamics be canceled.
The NYPD acquired the robot in 2020 as part of a test for a new generation of police robotic devices. John Miller, New York Police deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism, told the media that the $ 94,000 lease, which was originally scheduled to end in August, was early canceled. April 22. The Digidog canine robot must be returned to its manufacturer following outrage over calls to cut police funding and law enforcement access to equipment developed for the weapon.
Boston Dynamics said last year that its new quadruped robots are not intended for military use. However, he sold it to the police in the United States, and the New York Police Department (NYPD) used it in the field. Digidog is a robot dog with cameras and lights fixed on its chassis, and a two-way communication system that allows the agent maneuvering it to see and hear what’s going on at a distance. The NYPD has said Digidog can see in the dark and assess the safety of officers entering an apartment or building where there may be a threat.
Earlier this year, the department described the robot as a tool that can be used to defuse dangerous situations and said it would help officers stay out of harm’s way. New York Police have used robots since the 1970s to save lives in hostage-taking and hazardous material incidents, the NYPD said earlier this year. This robot model is being tested to assess its capabilities against other models used by our emergency services unit and mine clearance team.
But the robot dog elicited an immediate reaction, with critics noting that police dogs have traditionally been used to suppress and intimidate communities of color. Some have also pointed out that it was reminiscent of the robot dogs from Netflix’s dystopian series, Black Mirror.
Shout out all those who fought against the defenders of the community who demanded that these resources go instead of investments like school guidance, said the American representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter. Now, robotic surveillance ground drones are being deployed to be tested in low-income communities of color as schools are under-resourced.
Please ask yourself: when was the last time you saw next-generation, world-class technology for education, healthcare, housing, etc. systematically prioritized for underserved communities like this? wrote Ocasio-Cortez in February.
Creepy, Aligning High-Tech Robot Dog That Sends The Wrong Message To New Yorkers
As the robot was due to be fired from Boston Dynamics, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he was happy the Digidog was shot down, adding through a spokesperson that the robot was scary. , aligning and sending the wrong message to New Yorkers.
The high-tech police robot dog has naturally sparked imaginations, but Spot is just a human-controlled mobile camera, as opposed to a stand-alone, armed version of this machine. Boston Dynamics’ Terms of Sale prohibit the weaponry of Spot, the “Prohibited Uses” section of the Terms of Service prohibiting the intentional use of the equipment to injure or intimidate any person or animal, as a weapon, or to activate. a weapon . But the rules are only good if they are enforced, and it can be argued that the use of the robot by the police is considered intimidation. Either way, arming the police with a surveillance device worth $ 100,000 did not earn the department much praise.
The regulation of new AI technologies is being debated around the world. As the EU seeks to establish global rules for the use of AI, Thierry Breton said at a press conference: Behind the term artificial intelligence, there are popular beliefs and fears that have long been vehicles in the film industry, he said. It is true that the little robot (character from Walt Disney’s animated film) WALL-E unfortunately could not make us forget the T-800 (robot) from Terminator. We must therefore navigate between all this and not stigmatize the technology, he added during the presentation of the bill. As for Margrethe Vestager, the European head of technology, she said in a press release that When it comes to artificial intelligence, trust is an imperative, not a luxury to have.
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Police have been using demining bots for quite some time now, and in 2016 a Dallas police department even used a primer robot to plant a bomb, killing one of the men who attacked from a distance and killing police and civilians in a bombing attack. expression. The NYPD recently said that Spot is in fact cheaper than some of the bots the department already uses. But nothing attracts more attention than the robots of Boston Dynamics, with their animal movements. Robots’ all-terrain capabilities also allow them to be deployed in many more situations than a wheeled robot that is used to deliver bombs.
While it is true that they are ideal for situations which could be dangerous to humans, they also raise fears of unwanted surveillance and questions about the use of funds by the police. They have also sparked the retention of worrying technologies such as armed drones.
The French weapon has Spot test as part of combat exercises. Although Spot was not militarized during these exercises, which would have violated the Boston Dynamics Terms of Service, and was instead used for advanced surveillance, it still raises questions. On the news of the French teardrop drills with Spot, Boston Dynamics VP of Business Development Michael Perry said we’re learning it the way you do. We are not sure on the exact scope of this commitment, he added.
However, Perry added that the company is still “evaluating” whether or not to ban unarmed deployments by military customers. We think the weapon, in that it uses robotics to incapacitate people, is a perfectly valid use of that technology, Perry said in the media. With this advanced deployment model that you are discussing, this is something we need to better understand to determine whether or not it is actively being used to harm people. But critics say it is inevitable that these machines will be used as weapons.
When Boston Dynamics built Spot, the company said it planned to use the robot to monitor hazardous industrial areas such as nuclear power plants, offshore oil fields, construction sites and mines, not for missions. from police. Although Digidog has been retired, it is not excluded that the robot dog will return years later among the machines of the New York Police Department.
Boston Dynamics claims to have sold over 400 units to date. SpaceX recently employed, according to Space Eplored, two of these robots for a more appropriate use: monitoring its rocket launch facilities, where the robots can represent potentially dangerous situations like gas leaks or the consequences of the explosion. of a spaceship.
Source: The Mayor of New York
And you ?
What do you think ?
Does this Digidog withdrawal herald a definitive ban on the use of Spot by law enforcement agencies?
Do you think Digidog is a dangerous monitoring tool?
See as well :
Boston Dynamics sells Digidog, its robot dog, to law enforcement, but some fear it could become a dangerous surveillance tool
Boston Dynamics unveils Stretch: a new robot designed to unload trucks, using software to detect and move up to 800 boxes per hour
EU seeks global standards for use of AI, but civil rights groups worry
French weapon testing Boston Dynamics robot dog Spot in combat scenarios, raising questions as to where the robot will be deployed in the future.
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