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I understand that this is a solution. What I don't understand is, what problem is being solved here? There are additional problems: - By being an untethered "

I understand that this is a solution. What I don't understand is, what problem is being solved here? There are additional problems: - By being an untethered "telepresence" robot, it is vulnerable to jamming. And that's if people do not find any vulnerabilities. - The actual "police officers" will be far removed from the situation at hand. This creates a high incentive for abuse.

ccvannorman 11y ago
Sounds a lot like drone warfare, which is working perfectly in the US's short-term and long-term best interests. /s
imjustsaying 11y ago
Last year while waiting at a bus stop in Hangzhou in front of an intra-immigration office, I saw a Chinese police officer (shove, kick, or throw (it was a year ago)) a protester from behind. She was part of a crowd of other protesters. It looked like the protester bumped into him seconds before, while being herded away from the office by the police. The woman was already in front of him and walking away, but the officer's facial expression made it clear he was very agitated. It seemed like he just wanted to 'get back' at her for bumping into him beforehand. His impact made her lose her balance and she nearly fell to the ground. Maybe having someone physically and emotionally detached from a physical setting could have positive benefits in some situations. I am still not sure whether the remote controlled cop is a good thing though. As an aside, the broken internet in China is crippling entire generations of people into ignorant irrelevance. I don't think enough people appreciate the magnanimous ramifications of making an entire country deliberately ignorant. It's not just Google and Facebook that are blocked, it's Chinese Wikipedia, Wordpress, and the free press in general. You need a license to publish anything. Corruption and blatant scandals can't get published without approval from the Party. All the state-owned enterprises, including the public universities, are run by the Party. The Party will not often allow anything to be published that exposes anything related to itself or its co-conspirators. All foreign-hosted websites have soft blocks, where they will randomly not load, with no explanation given, subconsciously driving people to only use domestic websites that always work. People have no way of protesting any of this without getting destroyed by the state, professionally or literally. Unless of course, they apply and successfully get permission from the state to do so.
StanislavPetrov 11y ago
It depends who you are, and what your definition of "a problem" is. If an angry crowd of people protesting against your oppressive government policies is a problem, these robots are a great solution. The robot never questions the order to fire on the crowd no matter how offensive, illegal, or unconstitutional the issue being protested is. How many of these semi-autonomous robots can be controlled by one person or a small group of people? At some point dictators, despots, and other out of control governments won't even need the consent of the military and the police to rule by force.

ccvannorman 11y ago

Sounds a lot like drone warfare, which is working perfectly in the US's short-term and long-term best interests. /s

imjustsaying 11y ago

Last year while waiting at a bus stop in Hangzhou in front of an intra-immigration office, I saw a Chinese police officer (shove, kick, or throw (it was a year ago)) a protester from behind. She was part of a crowd of other protesters. It looked like the protester bumped into him seconds before, while being herded away from the office by the police. The woman was already in front of him and walking away, but the officer's facial expression made it clear he was very agitated. It seemed like he just wanted to 'get back' at her for bumping into him beforehand. His impact made her lose her balance and she nearly fell to the ground. Maybe having someone physically and emotionally detached from a physical setting could have positive benefits in some situations. I am still not sure whether the remote controlled cop is a good thing though. As an aside, the broken internet in China is crippling entire generations of people into ignorant irrelevance. I don't think enough people appreciate the magnanimous ramifications of making an entire country deliberately ignorant. It's not just Google and Facebook that are blocked, it's Chinese Wikipedia, Wordpress, and the free press in general. You need a license to publish anything. Corruption and blatant scandals can't get published without approval from the Party. All the state-owned enterprises, including the public universities, are run by the Party. The Party will not often allow anything to be published that exposes anything related to itself or its co-conspirators. All foreign-hosted websites have soft blocks, where they will randomly not load, with no explanation given, subconsciously driving people to only use domestic websites that always work. People have no way of protesting any of this without getting destroyed by the state, professionally or literally. Unless of course, they apply and successfully get permission from the state to do so.

StanislavPetrov 11y ago

It depends who you are, and what your definition of "a problem" is. If an angry crowd of people protesting against your oppressive government policies is a problem, these robots are a great solution. The robot never questions the order to fire on the crowd no matter how offensive, illegal, or unconstitutional the issue being protested is. How many of these semi-autonomous robots can be controlled by one person or a small group of people? At some point dictators, despots, and other out of control governments won't even need the consent of the military and the police to rule by force.