5 ms·

Got to love "news" reporting - always finding the most fair / neutral description of the situation :) I might try putting in alternative titles "Robot dog tak

Got to love "news" reporting - always finding the most fair / neutral description of the situation :) I might try putting in alternative titles "Robot dog takes temperatures of homeless to help screen for Covid-19". edited per suggestion to "Police robot dog takes temperatures of homeless to help screen for Covid-19".

smhenderson 5y ago
I totally agree but I also think the headline needs to include Police Robot Dog. I think in this case this is a great use for a tool like BD's Spot. But I also agree with the ACLU employee, Jongwook Kim, when he says “At some point it will come out again for some different use after the pandemic is over". I would like some upfront thought put into how we, as a society, will use technology like this now and in the future. We obviously can't predict everything but I don't see a problem with trying to come up with some common sense legislation now that cuts off potentially privacy invasive or dangerous uses of this type of tech in the future.
- JohnFen 5y ago
  > I don't see a problem with trying to come up with some common sense legislation now that cuts off potentially privacy invasive or dangerous uses of this type of tech in the future. We seem to have a problem doing that for existing tech that the police have been using, so I'm not so optimistic about this.
  - smhenderson 5y ago
    I thought about that. And I ask, how so? A lot of the examples I could think of are about current law being applied to technology that not only did not exist when the law was written but, in a lot of cases, the people writing the law could never have even imagined the tech/situations the law was being applied to now. I'm certainly not saying bad laws haven't been written to address tech and the police but I don't think that means we can't keep trying. As another poster said, I think the bigger question here isn't about whether or not a robot dog is doing this, it's why are the police handling health issues at a homeless shelter? Why aren't social/healthcare workers doing it? The article doesn't say so maybe the police just loaned them the dog to do this but that's not the impression I get from the article. Bottom line, I do get your pessimism, I generally share it these days. But I think it's also important to not just give in and hopefully we learn from past mistakes and can do better.
tazedsoul 5y ago
The problem here is that the police are buying $75k robot dogs. Sure, this one is being used to sniff out COVID. What’s the next version doing? It’s a slippery slope, and given the history of the police in America becoming increasingly militarized, it’s worrisome the direction we are going.
FireBeyond 5y ago
Were the homeless asked if they consented to medical assessments. Why do police not conduct random pedestrian "stop and temperature take"? Who was asking for this screening?

smhenderson 5y ago

I totally agree but I also think the headline needs to include Police Robot Dog. I think in this case this is a great use for a tool like BD's Spot. But I also agree with the ACLU employee, Jongwook Kim, when he says “At some point it will come out again for some different use after the pandemic is over". I would like some upfront thought put into how we, as a society, will use technology like this now and in the future. We obviously can't predict everything but I don't see a problem with trying to come up with some common sense legislation now that cuts off potentially privacy invasive or dangerous uses of this type of tech in the future.

JohnFen 5y ago
> I don't see a problem with trying to come up with some common sense legislation now that cuts off potentially privacy invasive or dangerous uses of this type of tech in the future. We seem to have a problem doing that for existing tech that the police have been using, so I'm not so optimistic about this.
- smhenderson 5y ago
  I thought about that. And I ask, how so? A lot of the examples I could think of are about current law being applied to technology that not only did not exist when the law was written but, in a lot of cases, the people writing the law could never have even imagined the tech/situations the law was being applied to now. I'm certainly not saying bad laws haven't been written to address tech and the police but I don't think that means we can't keep trying. As another poster said, I think the bigger question here isn't about whether or not a robot dog is doing this, it's why are the police handling health issues at a homeless shelter? Why aren't social/healthcare workers doing it? The article doesn't say so maybe the police just loaned them the dog to do this but that's not the impression I get from the article. Bottom line, I do get your pessimism, I generally share it these days. But I think it's also important to not just give in and hopefully we learn from past mistakes and can do better.

tazedsoul 5y ago

The problem here is that the police are buying $75k robot dogs. Sure, this one is being used to sniff out COVID. What’s the next version doing? It’s a slippery slope, and given the history of the police in America becoming increasingly militarized, it’s worrisome the direction we are going.

FireBeyond 5y ago

Were the homeless asked if they consented to medical assessments. Why do police not conduct random pedestrian "stop and temperature take"? Who was asking for this screening?