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It's important to not go down this slippery slope. Right now robot dogs might only be used in extreme cases, but if continue to normalise this, it's only a mat

It's important to not go down this slippery slope. Right now robot dogs might only be used in extreme cases, but if continue to normalise this, it's only a matter of time before they're used in very morally questionable ways, such as arming them and using them to control (rightful, non-violent) protests, or being given autonomous control and letting them patrol cities and what not. This should be avoided. At all costs.

jordanpg 7y ago
Robots are used everywhere already. Everywhere. This is getting press because it's kind of edgy-looking, involves police, and the ACLU. It's not a question of if, but when and how. Implementation. The most interesting question to me is how regulation will unfold as robots become ubiquitous in public life. At least in the United States, I suspect that it will take several rather grotesque disasters before regulatory bodies get seriously involved and get around to passing the 3 Laws.
- deogeo 7y ago
  > Robots are used everywhere already. Everywhere. That's utterly irrelevant - the parent poster was talking specifically about robots used against humans. And the reason it's dangerous, is that you no longer need to convince a human to pull the trigger. It concentrates unchecked power into even fewer hands.
  - nexuist 7y ago
    Robots are used against humans everywhere, already. Remember Predator drones? Been in the skies since the early 2000s. They require human authorization, and it is very unlikely that any AI will be given trigger control anytime soon. Nobody would trust their life to an algorithm, and if you rely on the algorithm to determine who's a friendly, your users are not going to like you.
    - deogeo 7y ago
      By 'everywhere', you mean war zones. I don't have Predator drones flying over my head, and I want to keep it that way.
      - nexuist 7y ago
        > Civilian applications for drones have included border enforcement and scientific studies, and to monitor wind direction and other characteristics of large forest fires (such as the drone that was used by the California Air National Guard in the August 2013 Rim Fire). > On 18 May 2006, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a certificate of authorization which will allow the M/RQ-1 and M/RQ-9 aircraft to be used within U.S. civilian airspace to search for survivors of disasters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-1_Predator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-1_Predator The seeds are sowed. I also find it very Ameri-centric to believe that you are safe just because you are not in a war zone. Consider the well-meaning families that have to deal with these things, knowing that at any point in time they could be blown to oblivion with no prior warning. The majority of them are not terrorists, yet they all must deal with constant paranoia.
  - tomatotomato37 7y ago
    I believe there is a critical misunderstanding here going on; this isn't an argument against a "pure" robot, aka a mechanical contraption that can move and manipulate things, this is an argument against artificial intelligence, which people commonly use robot as a synonym for. Police robot tech is still manually controlled because contrary to the hype the cutting edge of robotics AI is still in the realm of not falling over when some dude from Boston Dynamics hits it with a stick.
- yumraj 7y ago
  > Robots are used everywhere already. Everywhere. Robots are used in manufacturing, in closed relatively controlled environments. They don't yet freely roam the streets among human population and that is the issue here.
- manifestsilence 7y ago
  And you know how the 3 laws turned out in Asimov's world... Seriously though, I don't think Asimov was being naive with his choice of laws and then showing how they were then subverted. I'm sure he was aware of things like Godel's proofs and the difficulties involved with fuzzy logic and AI. Asimov kept his laws simple so they would work in a story, but was likely well-aware that real laws could be made more nuanced and that they inevitably would still fail in the ways he described. Implementation is going to be very, very hard to get right, if at all possible.
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    > And you know how the 3 laws turned out in Asimov's world... Pretty well? If you're referring to the original book (and not the excellent Will Smith movie that deviated from the source material significantly but was extremely entertaining in its own right), the robots correctly surmised that humans lacked the wetware capacity for global-scale planning and took on that burden. The world at the end of Asimov's story is many things, but it isn't dying from an utterly avoidable climate change disaster because of a transcontinental tragedy of the commons. (It is, of course, a fiction. But if we can't take away from the fiction "We should trust robots with global resource planning" without some critical thinking, we shouldn't take away "robots can never be trusted and will always betray humanity" without some critical thinking either).
    - TheCoelacanth 7y ago
      I would assume they're referring to the original short stories published in I, Robot, which has numerous robots gone awry stories, but not the the taking over planning for all of human civilization plot that you are referring to. That plot was from books he wrote 40 years later to unify the Foundation and Robots series. Many fans consider it a rage-inducing retcon.
      - shadowgovt 7y ago
        I'm referring specifically to "The Evitable Conflict" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evitable_Conflict https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evitable_Conflict), which I believe appeared in the original 1950 collection. It specifically includes the plot of the world coordinating machines causing some harm to come to some individuals to optimize the survival of the machines and the outcome for humanity as a whole. I'll have to look up the other stories you referenced though; I'm unfamiliar with them and they sound fascinating.
- tsimionescu 7y ago
  > Robots are used everywhere already. Everywhere. As far as I know, robots are used in manufacturing, surgery, home cleaning gimmicks, and war. Use of robots in war is already problematic, and seems to have greatly emboldened some countries to carry out campaigns of terror and assassination on other countries' territories. We really don't want the police to start on the same path.
  - CompanionCuuube 7y ago
    I wouldn't call washing machines/dryers/dishwashers "home cleaning gimmicks".
    - ska 7y ago
      Fair enough, but I wouldn't call washing machines/dryers/dishwashers robots.
    - tsimionescu 7y ago
      I was thinking more about automated vacuum cleaners. You can take a very broad view of the term 'robot', where it is more or less equivalent with 'machine', and then you world be right - they are literally everywhere. But given the reaction to this article, I think that it's clear most people have a more narrow definition of 'robot', one which draws a line between a machine which splashes water and detergent inside itself for a pre-determined amount of time on one hand, and semi-autonomous walking machines on the other hand.
sixothree 7y ago
Robots will be performing arrests in 20 years.
kayfox 7y ago
Before these robot dogs were available, your main two options for reconnaissance of a volatile situation was either sending someone in who will shoot to kill if shot at or a robot with limited mobility (comparatively). Now there's an option to send a robot with significantly better mobility that wont go shooting at people who shoot at them. I think if this becomes more prevalent there may be less situations where the police move directly to dynamic entry (SWAT team going in). That may lead to less deaths in the long run.
- dariusj18 7y ago
  How long before the robot dog has a gun mounted on it to protect the investment of having a robot dog?
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    First, the "snake-head on a goose-neck" manipulator that usually mounts on Spot will have a pair of electroshock probes added, as a non-lethal means of incapacitating a suspect at touch range. Then they will add a 20ga shotgun that shoots a single beanbag or netting cartridge. Then, after that, they will use the lethal firearms.
    - shadowgovt 7y ago
      Or we could not. Slippery slope arguments assume people make the worst choices, and there's no reason that's necessary. Declare automated surveillance drones categorically unacceptable because of a hypothetical risk they could have weapons mounted on them and you get more people and animals killed unnecessarily.
      - logfromblammo 7y ago
        I am not making that particular argument. I'd prefer to mount the .38 special revolver on the robot now, make sure the trigger-pull servo is 100% human-controlled, and train the robot operator on the rules of engagement and remote use of lethal force right from the start, rather than just wait until the inevitable happens to catch up. A cop-controlled robot is an extension of the cop. It's not the robot's fault if its technology is misused, but the cop's. The problem underlying all this is that cops have too much unchecked power already. At least if they're shooting people remotely with armed robots, we would know the camera wasn't malfunctioning, and that the video should be available for the civil lawsuit. Rather than freaking out about the possibility that robots might be armed, just assume that they are already weapons, and craft the human policy around the technology. I.e. when a robot is armed, the firing mechanism for the weapon must be under direct human control. If you claim your robot will never be armed or used to intimidate, you can conveniently skip out on writing that rule, so when it happens someone gets a free escape responsibility card, with "we weren't trained for this" printed on it.
guramarx11 7y ago
they already have unmanned drones with lethal weapon in war the deployment of machines in urban city is only a matter of time, with the rising stake and the scare of massive social movement, "they" will justify the usage to suppress "crime" of dissident whether the robots are manned or autonomous or self-aware, one thing is inevitable are the harms/deaths caused by "them" eventually
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  What do you see as the alternative?
swebs 7y ago
>This should be avoided. At all costs. Why? Using robots just sounds like an implementation detail. They should be able to do anything you're fine with human police doing.
oh_sigh 7y ago
It's weird to proudly proclaim that you're committing a logical fallacy as your first sentence.

jordanpg 7y ago

Robots are used everywhere already. Everywhere. This is getting press because it's kind of edgy-looking, involves police, and the ACLU. It's not a question of if, but when and how. Implementation. The most interesting question to me is how regulation will unfold as robots become ubiquitous in public life. At least in the United States, I suspect that it will take several rather grotesque disasters before regulatory bodies get seriously involved and get around to passing the 3 Laws.

deogeo 7y ago
> Robots are used everywhere already. Everywhere. That's utterly irrelevant - the parent poster was talking specifically about robots used against humans. And the reason it's dangerous, is that you no longer need to convince a human to pull the trigger. It concentrates unchecked power into even fewer hands.
- nexuist 7y ago
  Robots are used against humans everywhere, already. Remember Predator drones? Been in the skies since the early 2000s. They require human authorization, and it is very unlikely that any AI will be given trigger control anytime soon. Nobody would trust their life to an algorithm, and if you rely on the algorithm to determine who's a friendly, your users are not going to like you.
  - deogeo 7y ago
    By 'everywhere', you mean war zones. I don't have Predator drones flying over my head, and I want to keep it that way.
    - nexuist 7y ago
      > Civilian applications for drones have included border enforcement and scientific studies, and to monitor wind direction and other characteristics of large forest fires (such as the drone that was used by the California Air National Guard in the August 2013 Rim Fire). > On 18 May 2006, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a certificate of authorization which will allow the M/RQ-1 and M/RQ-9 aircraft to be used within U.S. civilian airspace to search for survivors of disasters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-1_Predator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-1_Predator The seeds are sowed. I also find it very Ameri-centric to believe that you are safe just because you are not in a war zone. Consider the well-meaning families that have to deal with these things, knowing that at any point in time they could be blown to oblivion with no prior warning. The majority of them are not terrorists, yet they all must deal with constant paranoia.
- tomatotomato37 7y ago
  I believe there is a critical misunderstanding here going on; this isn't an argument against a "pure" robot, aka a mechanical contraption that can move and manipulate things, this is an argument against artificial intelligence, which people commonly use robot as a synonym for. Police robot tech is still manually controlled because contrary to the hype the cutting edge of robotics AI is still in the realm of not falling over when some dude from Boston Dynamics hits it with a stick.
yumraj 7y ago
> Robots are used everywhere already. Everywhere. Robots are used in manufacturing, in closed relatively controlled environments. They don't yet freely roam the streets among human population and that is the issue here.
manifestsilence 7y ago
And you know how the 3 laws turned out in Asimov's world... Seriously though, I don't think Asimov was being naive with his choice of laws and then showing how they were then subverted. I'm sure he was aware of things like Godel's proofs and the difficulties involved with fuzzy logic and AI. Asimov kept his laws simple so they would work in a story, but was likely well-aware that real laws could be made more nuanced and that they inevitably would still fail in the ways he described. Implementation is going to be very, very hard to get right, if at all possible.
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  > And you know how the 3 laws turned out in Asimov's world... Pretty well? If you're referring to the original book (and not the excellent Will Smith movie that deviated from the source material significantly but was extremely entertaining in its own right), the robots correctly surmised that humans lacked the wetware capacity for global-scale planning and took on that burden. The world at the end of Asimov's story is many things, but it isn't dying from an utterly avoidable climate change disaster because of a transcontinental tragedy of the commons. (It is, of course, a fiction. But if we can't take away from the fiction "We should trust robots with global resource planning" without some critical thinking, we shouldn't take away "robots can never be trusted and will always betray humanity" without some critical thinking either).
  - TheCoelacanth 7y ago
    I would assume they're referring to the original short stories published in I, Robot, which has numerous robots gone awry stories, but not the the taking over planning for all of human civilization plot that you are referring to. That plot was from books he wrote 40 years later to unify the Foundation and Robots series. Many fans consider it a rage-inducing retcon.
    - shadowgovt 7y ago
      I'm referring specifically to "The Evitable Conflict" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evitable_Conflict https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evitable_Conflict), which I believe appeared in the original 1950 collection. It specifically includes the plot of the world coordinating machines causing some harm to come to some individuals to optimize the survival of the machines and the outcome for humanity as a whole. I'll have to look up the other stories you referenced though; I'm unfamiliar with them and they sound fascinating.
tsimionescu 7y ago
> Robots are used everywhere already. Everywhere. As far as I know, robots are used in manufacturing, surgery, home cleaning gimmicks, and war. Use of robots in war is already problematic, and seems to have greatly emboldened some countries to carry out campaigns of terror and assassination on other countries' territories. We really don't want the police to start on the same path.
- CompanionCuuube 7y ago
  I wouldn't call washing machines/dryers/dishwashers "home cleaning gimmicks".
  - ska 7y ago
    Fair enough, but I wouldn't call washing machines/dryers/dishwashers robots.
  - tsimionescu 7y ago
    I was thinking more about automated vacuum cleaners. You can take a very broad view of the term 'robot', where it is more or less equivalent with 'machine', and then you world be right - they are literally everywhere. But given the reaction to this article, I think that it's clear most people have a more narrow definition of 'robot', one which draws a line between a machine which splashes water and detergent inside itself for a pre-determined amount of time on one hand, and semi-autonomous walking machines on the other hand.

sixothree 7y ago

Robots will be performing arrests in 20 years.

kayfox 7y ago

Before these robot dogs were available, your main two options for reconnaissance of a volatile situation was either sending someone in who will shoot to kill if shot at or a robot with limited mobility (comparatively). Now there's an option to send a robot with significantly better mobility that wont go shooting at people who shoot at them. I think if this becomes more prevalent there may be less situations where the police move directly to dynamic entry (SWAT team going in). That may lead to less deaths in the long run.

dariusj18 7y ago
How long before the robot dog has a gun mounted on it to protect the investment of having a robot dog?
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  First, the "snake-head on a goose-neck" manipulator that usually mounts on Spot will have a pair of electroshock probes added, as a non-lethal means of incapacitating a suspect at touch range. Then they will add a 20ga shotgun that shoots a single beanbag or netting cartridge. Then, after that, they will use the lethal firearms.
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    Or we could not. Slippery slope arguments assume people make the worst choices, and there's no reason that's necessary. Declare automated surveillance drones categorically unacceptable because of a hypothetical risk they could have weapons mounted on them and you get more people and animals killed unnecessarily.
    - logfromblammo 7y ago
      I am not making that particular argument. I'd prefer to mount the .38 special revolver on the robot now, make sure the trigger-pull servo is 100% human-controlled, and train the robot operator on the rules of engagement and remote use of lethal force right from the start, rather than just wait until the inevitable happens to catch up. A cop-controlled robot is an extension of the cop. It's not the robot's fault if its technology is misused, but the cop's. The problem underlying all this is that cops have too much unchecked power already. At least if they're shooting people remotely with armed robots, we would know the camera wasn't malfunctioning, and that the video should be available for the civil lawsuit. Rather than freaking out about the possibility that robots might be armed, just assume that they are already weapons, and craft the human policy around the technology. I.e. when a robot is armed, the firing mechanism for the weapon must be under direct human control. If you claim your robot will never be armed or used to intimidate, you can conveniently skip out on writing that rule, so when it happens someone gets a free escape responsibility card, with "we weren't trained for this" printed on it.

guramarx11 7y ago

they already have unmanned drones with lethal weapon in war the deployment of machines in urban city is only a matter of time, with the rising stake and the scare of massive social movement, "they" will justify the usage to suppress "crime" of dissident whether the robots are manned or autonomous or self-aware, one thing is inevitable are the harms/deaths caused by "them" eventually

shadowgovt 7y ago
What do you see as the alternative?

swebs 7y ago

>This should be avoided. At all costs. Why? Using robots just sounds like an implementation detail. They should be able to do anything you're fine with human police doing.

oh_sigh 7y ago

It's weird to proudly proclaim that you're committing a logical fallacy as your first sentence.