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The bigger question for me is why the police spends 75k on this. That's a yearly salary for 1-2 social workers, and could provide a lot of quarantine space for

The bigger question for me is why the police spends 75k on this. That's a yearly salary for 1-2 social workers, and could provide a lot of quarantine space for infected homeless people. While the Boston Dynamics robodog is quite advanced for what it is, it is still basically a toy, and if I was a US citizen, I'd be really annoyed with public funds being spent on this.

filoleg 5y ago
>The bigger question for me is why the police spends 75k on this. That's a yearly salary for 1-2 social workers That $75k number quickly balloons up to quote exorbitant amounts if health of those social workers gets put in danger due to such interactions (whether due to getting infected or due to violence inflicted upon them). Given that we are trying to reduce infections in the overall population by any means possible, this seems like a rather cheap and non-invasive (aka no restrictions imposed on the population) way of achieving that. Sure, masks help, but if you are surrounded by tons of infected people on a daily basis in a confined environment, you have a rather notable risk (as evident by all the cases coming from doctors who got infected after working with covid patients during the first two waves). Why should we put lives of 1-2 social workers at risk and deal with them potentially costing way over $75k, instead of spending those $75k on a solution that has none of those risks?
- lostlogin 5y ago
  Because the dog isn’t a solution. If the person has symptoms, they need a swab. If they don’t have symptoms and you’re suspicious of infection (eg they are a close contact), they need a swab. The robot can’t do that. Also, does the dog cost $75k and that’s it? Or is there ongoing costs, upgrades and running repairs? It might not need sick days, weekends or vacations, but it can’t do a fraction of the work a human can.
  - ksaj 5y ago
    I would expect it to also require operator training and authorization mechanisms. Then there are use policy development and maintenance. Plus there would be coding costs since this seems to be a specialized use case. Bringing in a semi-autonomous robot to work amongst the public probably doesn't and shouldn't happen in a financial void.
jka 5y ago
Perhaps it's being evaluated for other purposes by the company that developed it and/or the local police department. They should really make that clear if so.

filoleg 5y ago

>The bigger question for me is why the police spends 75k on this. That's a yearly salary for 1-2 social workers That $75k number quickly balloons up to quote exorbitant amounts if health of those social workers gets put in danger due to such interactions (whether due to getting infected or due to violence inflicted upon them). Given that we are trying to reduce infections in the overall population by any means possible, this seems like a rather cheap and non-invasive (aka no restrictions imposed on the population) way of achieving that. Sure, masks help, but if you are surrounded by tons of infected people on a daily basis in a confined environment, you have a rather notable risk (as evident by all the cases coming from doctors who got infected after working with covid patients during the first two waves). Why should we put lives of 1-2 social workers at risk and deal with them potentially costing way over $75k, instead of spending those $75k on a solution that has none of those risks?

lostlogin 5y ago
Because the dog isn’t a solution. If the person has symptoms, they need a swab. If they don’t have symptoms and you’re suspicious of infection (eg they are a close contact), they need a swab. The robot can’t do that. Also, does the dog cost $75k and that’s it? Or is there ongoing costs, upgrades and running repairs? It might not need sick days, weekends or vacations, but it can’t do a fraction of the work a human can.
- ksaj 5y ago
  I would expect it to also require operator training and authorization mechanisms. Then there are use policy development and maintenance. Plus there would be coding costs since this seems to be a specialized use case. Bringing in a semi-autonomous robot to work amongst the public probably doesn't and shouldn't happen in a financial void.

jka 5y ago

Perhaps it's being evaluated for other purposes by the company that developed it and/or the local police department. They should really make that clear if so.