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Skynet Is Here (And Stealing Your Jobs)
It may not be as sleek and intimidating as Robocop (or Skynet's Terminator) but California-based Knightscope's recently unveiled line of K5 robots will “predict and prevent crime with an innovative combination of hardware, software and social engagement.” While everyone from Jamba Juice to McDonalds is looking at robotizing their workforce away from minimum-wage-hike-demanding, bathroom-break-needing, healthcare-expecting, sleep-requiring humans, it seems everyone from your local mall cop to replacing police in neighborhood watch is now under threat as the automation of the American workforce moves from science fiction to science fact.
In a bid to make local communities safer and give local law enforcement agencies more tools to fight crime, California-based Knightscope recently unveiled a line of K5 robots that it believes will “predict and prevent crime with an innovative combination of hardware, software and social engagement.”
The new K5 units have a look that resembles R2-D2 from “Star Wars,” but their casual design masks a highly advanced robot that its creators hope will drastically cut down on crime. Weighing in at 300 pounds, the five-foot K5 can patrol a neighborhood and uses a built-in laser to form a 3D map of the surrounding area in 270-degree sweeps. Four built-in cameras, meanwhile, are capable of scanning up to 1,500 license plates a minute.
“Data collected through these sensors is processed through our predictive analytics engine, combined with existing business, government and crowdsourced social data sets, and subsequently assigned an alert level that determines when the community and the authorities should be notified of a concern,” the company’s website states.
According to Fox News, Knightscope already has multiple clients lined up to test beta versions of the K5 in 2014. Rather than sell the robots outright, the company will charge $1,000 a month for daily eight-hour shifts. Inspired to take action after 20 children were killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, Knightscope CEO William Li is convinced that innovation in law enforcement is necessary to effectively make use of officers’ time and manpower.
"Our aim is to cut the crime rate by 50% in a geo-fenced area, which would increase housing values and safety while lowering insurance costs,” he told USA Today. “If we can do that, I think every mayor will be calling us."
That prospect doesn’t sound comforting to everyone, however, especially civil liberties advocates wary of warrantless surveillance in light of the domestic spying done by the National Security Agency.
"Clearly, this kind of surveillance technology has an unbounded capacity to collect personal information that a single patrol officer doesn't," Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the watchdog group Electronic Privacy Information Center, said to USA Today.
"These are the same concerns we're facing with CCTV (closed-circuit television) and Google's mapping cars. Laws need to be updated to acknowledge these technologies, and companies, in turn, need to act responsibly.”
"Dead or alive, I'm taking your job."
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i prefer R2D2 to a human pig! at least taxpayer wont get raped wit ludicrous pensionz...and killing R2D2 wont be quite manslaughter (yet)...tho fer prison planet roboslaughter may one day carry same sentence..
And we should all look at the bright side here. I am pleased to note that no robot could ever substitute a human bearing buyer's analyses... Right?
Dey tuk R Jobs!!
+1
Anyone worth their salt knows "technology", as the economic tool, is a farce.
For those of you who have not studied the grand science of economics, please learn about input costs and how economics preaches technology - through technological advances - and thusly decreasing input costs.
This is one of many lies from the textbook courses.
Do you have to call it "sir"?
One bandana, one baseball bat.
One glass bottle of gasoline, one burning rag.
One swift kick.
[looks kinda top-heavy...]
Exclusive video of a K5 in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FhCHHMc85Q
What do you get when you mash up a Segway, a Roomba and Paul Blart Mall Cop?
I wonder if they can predict their own upcoming demise at the hands of Frat boys all across amerika?
I wonder if they are equipped to use hollow point ammo. Big waste otherwise.
I for one welcome our new robot overlords
With all the militarization going on, I would have expected something more along the lines of ED-209:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMMyVKm9BjM
I doubt this thing could withstand a .45 at close range or a 30.06 within 200 yards. Or Kim Kardashian's vaginal stench at any distance.
I am Chumbawamba.
The K5 won't be ready to replace cops on the beat until it can shoot and kill an unarmed suspect.
Don't blame me! *I* voted for Kodos.
Inquiring minds want to know!
http://americandictators.blogspot.com/2014/02/inquiring-minds-want-to-kn...
Can it go from thick carpet to hard floors automatically...?
The hell with that, Peabody! Can it sweep and vacuum at the same time?
That robot is white. This will end badly.
Now that there was funny!! Easily resolved though with black, brown, tan, yellow and my favorite, red spray paint.
Yes, I can hear it now.
Black guy, walking through white neighborhood, to other black guy: "Homey, why is this giant vaccuum cleaner following us?"
Time for a new paintball gun!
States should start building new prisons 'cause as soon as these going into active duty, there will not be enough space.
Watch the % of incarceration skyrocket from around 5-6 million to unimaginable levels.
Nah, there will be a Judge Dredd moment in history. Crime will be deemed an anti-social behavior and the droids will be judge, jury and executioner. No messy prison population to deal with. Probelm solved "for the greater good".
looks kinda like a combo kitchen mixer, microphone and stick shift wacking off in public to me
One soccer mom backing up her SUV in the parking lot.
"“Data collected through these sensors is processed through our predictive analytics engine, combined with existing business, government and crowdsourced social data sets, and subsequently assigned an alert level that determines when the community and the authorities should be notified of a concern,” the company’s website states."
Is it still racial profiling if the bot does it? I predict millions of dollars will be made by the class action industry, at least until the company folds and reincorporates in China.
We've seen videos of similar prototypes from other corners. Expect copycats.
The CEO is quite the corporate gymnast, assuming this is really his resume: http://www.linkedin.com/in/williamsantanali
More about the thing, with video: http://mashable.com/2013/12/12/knightscope-k5/
Sigh. Wonder if anybody has second thoughts about the process they enable. How about that Twitter feed for irony: #stopthemadness
Yeah, but the majority is WHITE COLLAR. Can these things patrol Wall Street? Picture squadrons circling the trading floor of major exchanges... Here's an idea: LET ROBOTS DO THE TRADING! Oh, wait...
One blanket soaked in petrol and it becomes a dust bin............... Oh, and how well does it climb stairs?
.
Probably about as well as an original series dalek.
Not really. They'll need to be packing serious hardware;otherwise, they'll get stolen and sold for parts. On the other hand, giving them weapons would likely increase the chances of this happening.
Who can't call it? Input costs from mining (blue collar), design (white collar), I mean come on - how can anyone argue that robots will always decrease input costs?
Krugman and his ilk can.
Economics can.
Dude, you're overlooking the fact that once we teach them to have sex then input costs reduce to near zero.
-Chumblez.
If tech were such a problem, we should all be standing in bread lines already. Tech per se isn't the issue. Destruction of currency is. Peri-fucking-od.
Pretty obvious where this is all heading. The need for lots of people is diminishing. At some point the relative handful of owners will be all that's needed - or desired.
The owners will always need a nice compliant slave class to do all the unpleasant things that are too dirty for the owner's manicured hands. Compliant being a key word there.
While disliking the dirty work the owners don't mind blood on their hands at all, by proxy of course. Robots may be their choice for the blood work one day as they don't have a conscience (though many people don't either), but more importantly because they likely won't turn on them after getting tired of their shit.
Butlerian Jihad
Never bought into this premise. AI can be reprogrammed. Competing machines built. The varied psychosis of human intelligence will always be far more scary to me than whatever technological consciousness we may yet create. All computers at their core are based on logic. 1+1 is always 2. Human beings aren't built on such a stable foundation.
Cutting-edge AI does not operate in the manner you describe here. It is not fundamentally algorithmic nor deterministic.
Any reference to Frank Herbert gets an up-vote. Butlerian Jihad coming? Prophecy or prescient vision, only the worm knows.
Not that way K5, you'll get stuck for sure!
Luddites unite..........
That's right. Luddites unite and implement a Robot Tax to offset the cost of lost jobs to the economy. Problem solved. Every job lost could have an ongoing cost of carrying the past contributions of the job. Maybe we do get to that 15 hour work week ;-)
Dup
VD is lacking protein. I have to admit, you're both of sound mind.
Make it fly and I'll be impressed
Sans Levitation?
Apply sufficient thrust, and horseshit can fly.
Rooftop. Clear the sidewalk! See, its so EASY... a caveman could push, er, do it.
Release the Krakens in Chicago and Detroit! Oh the humanity!
You buy Human Bearings!?!?!? Cool!
I'd always figured it was just, you know -- old school, mechanical, ball bearings. </sarc>
A realitivly easy to make hand held laser will fix this shit .. These fucktards think we're stupid and that will be their failure.
Think of how stupid the average American is; now think about how half of all Americans are stupider than that!
And half of those work for the gubbermint.......
I sense a disturbance in the Bell Curve.
For Whom the Division Bell Tolls? It tolls for thee.
well played
Many a stupid person is,in fact, cunning.Often thats all ya need, not brains nor guns but guile and cunning.
A relatively easy to swing hand-held pickax would suffice.
That thing is just another highly visible and very expensive "feel safe & secure" boondoggle device for the frightened masses to pay for. Its real purpose is to scare the dumbfuck public into thinking that such a piece of crap is even necessary. There are terrists behind every tree you know, and the War On Terror must continue indefinately and at all cost. It's a matter of National Security and public safety.
They'll only deploy these stupid things in shopping malls and public schools, areas where there are already enough security cameras to keep the unwashed rabble from pissing into the cooling vents.
Great Britain and the United States have already been conditioned to fear the K5:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQLbwOGT8eM
that clip is old
old.
the future of british justice is here watch until the end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0d28OSZ3DM
Fish...and plankton and sea greens, and protein from the sea.
Or simply place a cardboard box over the top.
A black garbage bag would be more likely to stay in place.
Ya really want to talk pig codes VD? http://www.ign.com/cheats/games/swine-pc-16598
I refuse to go thru a grocery store self-checkout lane. Feel sorry for the minimum wage employees soon to become unemployed.
I usually do as well, but then I often either have a coupon or am having the store do a "price match" with some other store for which a machine is not quite up to snuff yet. But yes, once they figure that out I expect even more self check outs. Then again, the machines do allow me to ring up tomatoes as bananas at half the cost and to stuff 3 bunches of radishes in a bag and run it thru as one at .89, so not all bad
You can get away with some small fraud, but they have max/min weights for each item. The shelf with the bags is a scale. If you click the button "I don't want to bag this item" it signals the clerk to take a look at what you're doing. Also, there is a price limit for items that can be self-checkout.
I used to refuse to go through the self-checkout line, too. Then one day, for whatever reason I don't recall, I ended up at one. Then I discovered the fun of it all: there is always some stop-loss attendant nearby; I signal for that worker to come over and assist me with the checkout, as "I don't know how to use this machine".
Ummm...you sure about that? We already have pensions for K-9s. Don't s'pose the dogs actually own a 401K invested in Milk-Bone, and Beggin' Bit, do you?
Petsmart has done very well. Our dogs have brighter retirements ahead than we do.
The Oligarchs just love you. It's all to easy.
Companies can't even make Operating Systems without major flaws and now this: " but California-based Knightscope's recently unveiled line of K5 robots will “predict and prevent crime with an innovative combination of hardware, software and social engagement.”"
Wow is all I have to say. Programming, robot repair, and engineers in general will be in great demand..to fix all the non-working shitty robots six months after they are deployed for work.
Think of Tom Cruise in Oblivion, or all of the Tom Cruise's . No thanks.
One has to wonder the extent of K5's "social engagement". Does it include a severe chastising of suspects or something a bit more, lethal?
but what about preventing thoughtcrime?
That was my first "thought". Who was that (Tom Cruise)? Don't remember the name of the movie, but I remember the plot.
Way closer than SkyNet.
as tom cruise didn't play in 1984, the minority report would be the answer.
"...combined with existing business, government and crowdsourced social data sets..." they even described the fascist model
Dat be da one.
Thats what a television is for.
Time to stock up on pantyhose and 12 gauge shotguns, bitchez........
K5 is so much better than my K9.
<And no need for a pooper scooper to boot.>
It's easily distracted if you throw a link of batteries over the fence.
I see the K5 getting rolled into a van by 6 guys (overestimating there, just making sure that the K5 can be lifted) and disassembled once it is tipped over. Angle grinders, oxyacetylene torch, etc. An expensive boondoggle for the municipality that buys into this schlock.
Or... tipped into a pickup and dropped into seawater. (ZAAAAAP!)
It might as well have a target painted on it.
That's when the kidnappers discover that K5s are built with a high-output auto-destruct, or that they're military-grade weaponized with accompanying drones above.
"The new K5 units have a look that resembles R2-D2 from “Star Wars,”" Tyler, those things look like women's pleasure toys. What are thye supposed to do, deter crime by making the criminal laugh or sick with arousal shock? I mean I would rather have something that resembles the intent of the law say like Robocop rather than the intent of a lecherous man! Ugh! Just waiting until the feminist make an issue out of this thing. They will claim that this is evidence of the great mal patriarchy and the need for more feminist gender transitive sensitivity studies or some bulloney. Either way, a lawsuit will make some one wealthy and there is a court order for men to promote greater sensitivity to womyn! Btw, I can see some broad getting upset at one of those things coming up to her and asking her questions. She will sue and claim mental distress and gender objectification! Don't say I did not tell you.
The premium "BUMP AND GRIND" model will include a very special multi-setting, fully-adjustable vibration feature, with multiple attachments for the discerning gentleman or lady.
Sorry, K5 more closely resembles a butt plug than it does R2D2...
Having never seen a Butt Plug, I guess most here will just have to take your word for it.
Have you ever considered a career in screenwriting? :>D
I was just joking!
There is almost always a way to defeat technology.
Yes, stay hidden from its cameras while you plug it with an AP out of a rifle. Put a mask on and thump it with a truck. Or simply use a cordeless sawzall. Or a sledge hammer. You don't need to get sophisticated to beat something like this.
My first thought as well. This is too fucking easy. Either they underestimate us or mock us, I'm not entirely sure. My God, it has no defenses! A cylindrical metal tit? I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Miffed;-)
Watch the video on this link:
http://www.koat.com/news/new-mexico/albuquerque/santa-fe-speed-van-shoot...
It's a guy pulling up to one of those speeding vans, getting out in his PJs, and shooting the van. You'll laugh. Now, apply the same to somebody running up to one of the dildo-bots and wrecking it. You'd laugh.
Yeah, laughed myself to tears on that one. Hell, let me have the first shot. If an old guy fighting cancer dressed in a nightshirt could do what he did, I'm inspired.
The one thing that makes me sick is the pathetic waste of money on R&D for such a pathetic pointless device. Undoubtedly a sizable government grant. God, I'm in the wrong field. Where's the government tit I can suck on to get money to design a tit dildo-bot. Can't wait for all the selfies where people bagged their bot. I may have to finally succumb and buy a smart phone for the occasion.
Miffed;-)
Wefunder has them listed as having raised $331,000 thus far. Crowd funding their Reg D.
http://wefunder.com/knightscope
And what's up with this ridiculous pic. It implies the Knightscope droid apprehending a man with a pistol. Lots of hype attached to this product, yet not much substance.
http://d2qbf73089ujv4.cloudfront.net/uploads/photo/image/14020/xl_School...
Marketing shitheads. Gun next to red LEDs = BAD. Stay away! ALERT ALERT ALERT!
Shame on the engineers who make this kind of garbage (and they're super proud of themselves, of course).
We had someone do that here in AZ... there was a person inside the speed camera van, so that didn't go over too well.
The guys that took bats to the freeway cameras, though... folk heroes.
FYI, there is the possibility with red light cameras that, should a debt collector place an unpaid ticket on your credit report that you might just be allowed to sue them for a violation of a Fair Credit Reporting Act. That's $1,000 per violation in statutory damages plus actual damages. The key is whether or not other circuits would agree with the 9th Circus that debts incurred from state action involuntarily do not count as consumer debt. You might even be able to include the municipality in on that, and have some real fun if they were to try to file counter claims for the unpaid ticket, because then you might be able to get it dismissed by a federal court because the court would in all likely hood lack subject matter jurisdiction, and I'm guessing that it wouldn't be covered under supplemental jurisdiction.
.
There was a hilarious site which featured photos of destroyed speed cameras in England. The horrific damage was awe inspiring. Regrettably, the Vandalised Gatsos pages are no longer there, probably forcibly removed by authorities screeching about terrism, but they still exist on the internet archive site. Very entertaining and highly recommended:
https://web.archive.org/web/20121010075457/http://www.speedcam.co.uk/gat...
https://web.archive.org/web/20120626054658/http://www.speedcam.co.uk/gat...
https://web.archive.org/web/20120908085123/http://www.speedcam.co.uk/gat...
https://web.archive.org/web/20120906091646/http://www.speedcam.co.uk/gat...
@ El Vaquero
Yep, an AP round or two from a .30-06 should do it.
They could have versions with tazers and poison darts and mace and grenades and even guns.
It's a robot, it's ok if it "dies." It can be a bomb itself.
Makes fucking with it a little more... dangerous.
Self-destruct their fancy electronics and cameras? Sounds cost-effective.
Technology always defeats itself! Governments wouldn't exist if it didn't!
Pretty sure a can of spray paint and a baseball bat could take that Terminator out pretty quickly.
...or bowling balls from four floors above.
If you see one, kick it over, let's see how America's fascist spy state operates when it's drones are on their asses. If Americans sit still and allow this all to keep unfolding, then they deserve the state of abject slavery they are headed for. In all seriousness, they are going to tax us workers to buy these fuckwit robots to spy on us. Talk about paying for your own enslavement. Any politician who buys these fuckhead robots with our hard earned tax money and uses them to impose a communist police state on us, well, you gonna vote for him again?
drones killing ppl all over the world are SKYNET
Good. Put one in the White house. And two in the Capitol and we should be fine.
Looks like a weeble.
"Inspired to take action after 20 children were killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre"
Ya, fucking right. It's all about the kiddies, right?
Give me a break. Fuck you Knightpole, it's about (grants?) the bottom dollar and further enslavement. Looks more like a falice to me.
At least that bitch will know I'm packin when I walk by. Bring it.
"...which would increase housing values and safety while lowering insurance costs."
Increase housing values - wouldn't the municiplaties love that - more tax revenue and the robots don't need healthcare or a pension.
And as far as lowering insurance costs...what he was really saying was "...while increasing insurance company profits".
Hey! A shout out to all capitalistic pigs who profess a liking for concepts like "low cost providers", and private enterprise. Don't be so quick to trash this thing.
A smoke detector senses a threat, and sounds a warning. The alarm systems on your house and your car do the same. Do you wish to ban the use of any of these, and insist that much more expensive meat security be contracted 24/7 to do those jobs? No? You like your secure home, and your inexpensive monitoring system in your car?
I defy any true Libertarian to object to a business providing a low cost service that customers want. People, businesses, communities, want to feel/appear/perhaps_even_be safe and secure, at low cost. They are a market, in need of a service, and therefore kudos to Kightscope for trying to field a product. That should be the end of the story, and we should all be supporters of innovation and private enterprise.
Now if you've got issues with government abuse of non-public information, I'll link arms with you and we can fight that shit till the day personal privacy and property rights are respected and dominate the law. AS WELL as the right of a home/business/community to see to its security in any fashion that they agree to and that doesn't impinge on the rights of their neighbors.
(And yes, this thing is a primitive novelty at the moment, due in short order for teen/delinquent/thief pranks of shorting, submerging, rolling, pant-sing, cream pies on the sensor dome etc etc etc. The marketing dream is big, where the reality is likely limited to empty office building corridors at night for many years to come). If it fulfills a need that a customer wants at $0.50/hr, then that's progress.
You're assuming I want this service in the first place. This is another step towards a total surveillance state. It is also a mobile machine that feeds information to police, who are not your friends. This is security theater. My 150lb dog provides security for my house and the pistol on my hip provides security for me.
I don't think we can put the genie back in the bottle. Low cost cameras, computer chips and sensor processing software is HERE, and wishing it would go away isn't going to work. We have an opportunity to manage HOW those technologies are used; that path remains open. But the world of tomorrow is going to be chock full of sensors.
As for this system, it can be designed as an arm of the state: gov-bot! Maybe it can even play that dalek "ETERMINATE!" Or, it can be put together so that it calls a 911 at about the same level of escalation that any human with a cell phone would. I'd fight the first, but have no issue with the latter.
The sub-thread of the article is spot on: peeple of planet Urth really really need to spend some serious time getting the rulebook together for the world that is coming. You can do this clean and respectfully, and call it progress, or we can just wake up in 1984 one day. Our choice.
It's 1984 TODAY. It's here. You're right about setting rules, but that won't happen. These things were made to fight crime as well as dissent. Who watches the watchmen?
And speaking of rules, just what kind of programming will skynet receive?
Will something like logging on to ZH or bad mouthing dear leader be considered a crime?
exterminate exterminate exterminate
You should probably set one next to your mailbox to see who is giving your old lady the extra "cream pie".
Thanks for the kind suggestion, but I don't need a bot at the house. About 2 years back, someone tried to break in to my home and smashed a window. A breaking-glass sensor went off, the alarm at the house went off, and the police were notified. After dealing with nosy cops, and a broken window repair in the middle of winter, I decided I'd try to prevent future occurrences rather than repel them once started. I purchased an 8 camera surveillance system, mounted them at obvious spots under the house eaves, covering areas and approaches.
The cameras have rings of IR LEDs around them, to illuminate scenes at night. The LEDs glow a dull cherry red. They're very visible. The cameras are not at all hidden.
It seems to have worked; no further incidents to date. My house says quite plainly to any with eyes "go find an easier house to mess with". That's what I was looking for. I suspect that is what El Vaquero's 150lb dog says, "be smart, go away." Neither his dog, nor my set of cameras, has a data connection to a freedom crushing nanny-state government monitoring system. If you are into blaming technology, then you'd hate my cameras but love his dog. Which is silly. A hammer is a tool, and you can build with it or destroy; same with a camera, or for that matter, a dog. Likewise the bots in this article are just a tool; the devil's in how they get used.
"Once the rockets are up
who cares where they come down
that's not my department"
Wernher von Braun
30 days X 8 hours = 240 hours @ month / $1000 month = $4.25 per hour
No water cooler chit chat, bathroom, lunch or smoke breaks. And not even Linda Green can scan 1500 license plates a minute !!
"In a bid to make local communities safer and give local law enforcement agencies more tools to fight crime..."
Ya know what, I've been over this propaganda poli-marketing campaign of "tools" for a long time, about the same time as Clinton first uttered this fucking nonsense.
Police have one advantage.... No one has ever stolen a policeman and sold him for scrap electronic parts.
If they did, you;l'd deal with the situation" Locally?"
Haven't you heard of kidnapping for harvesting organs?
autofixer Coordinated operations?
I predict a new statutory law. It will be a crime to put a garbage bag over a mobile sentinel or in other ways interfere with its security duties. Imagine your prison cell mate asking you 'what are you in for' lame answer "I intentionally confused a robot'.
..."I was just helping that robot over the fence."
Someone is helping bankers over fences.
James T. Kirk will be out of business.
Hope they have bankster identification enabled.
If they do, it's to make sure that it doesn't call 911 for things like buying blow and hiring hookers.
Guns are outlawed in England. That country is about to be over run.
Those bad asses in England wield an pick< ax! Bitchez!
Progressive matrix visions always rise and fall. Unfortunately, millions of people end up in death and carnage. History never falls to repeat itself.
It feels like the early 20TH CENTURY, with 6 billion xtras.
Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!
What could possibly go wrong? How many does it take to beat suspects to death? Does that cost extra? How can it tell a legitimate government operation from a crime?
It won't work.
Turmoil is the future,
because a critical mass of We doesn't get it,
nor do those who dabble in robots,
in spite of their non-intent.. the engineers...
It is those with a pathological need to control
who will commandeer the robots, too.
Capitalism is fine...
Self-Absorption and its neglect of the host -- that is a problem,
the one We don't get.
Working in a matrix: the matrix pyramid
People will then become like the desert living, horned headed Tuskan raiders in Star Wars, picking these things off from up high.
Having dumpster diving skills will become a new highly rated TV show.
*
When I was in prison for 10 years my bro there use to tell the correctional officers that robots are going to replace them... so funny ... now it's going to happen... lmao.. The irony....
Do tell us why you spend 10 years..
armed robbery.... young and full of ignorance...tried to save my mother's house from foreclosure in late 2002.