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Will Robots Replace Rent-a-Cops?
Daniel_Stuckey writes "Now, an EU-funded, £7.2 million ($11 million USD) collaborative project, called Strands, is underway in England to develop 4D, artificial intelligence for security and care applications. It aims to produce intelligent robo-sentinels that can patrol areas, and learn to detect abnormalities in human behavior. Could their project eventually replace security guards with robots? It looks possible. Strands, as Nick Hawes of the University of Birmingham said, will 'develop novel approaches to extract spatio-temporal structure from sensor data gathered during months of autonomous operation,' to develop intelligence that can then 'exploit [those] structures to yield adaptive behavior in highly demanding, real-world security and care scenarios.'"
"Please put down your weapon! You have 20 seconds to comply!"
I, for one, welcome our new robotic overlords!
KILL ALL HUMANS
If you're going for automation - why not just fixed cameras and other sensors covering the whole area?
Since the human nature is a violent one, I don't think violent behavior is abnormal, only not accepted in most circumstances by our social standards. The robot will detect behavior disapproved by the government that bought it.
This combination doesn`t exist: ETIs that know about humanity and want to see us dead. Otherwise we wouldn't exist.
submitter is pimping his own blog
Nick Hawes sounds like just another tired academic jumping on the bandwagon of grant money for security applications.
Shame on him.
Can we just spend bilions in developing a self aware AI and finally we can all be un-employed.
Or dead for either reason.
An AI can only tell with maybe 70% accuracy if I'm a human or a spam bot, let alone identify 'abnormal' behaviours. Of course now with the internet it has access to billions of social interactions to establish a baseline:
*****
Possible subject identified....
Scanning social media to establish baseline behavioural norms....
Behaviours identified....
Subject found to not be dressing a cat in a strange costume or ranting narcissistically - Abnormality identified....
*****
Maybe not...
The reality of a security guard is your main job is...to lower insurance costs. The reasons if you need to be a serious criminal to want to go through a human, these robots don't have deterrent...but I suspect nothing like the costs. The fact is accountants will decide this one.
In case your confused about what a security guard really does this is a clip from mike leighs Naked https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N90sl94g7PE
Just wait until some kid puts a "Kick Me" sign on the back of a robot.
A pedestrian crossing the street outside the marked cross walk at Abner Ave. was killed today when a Patrolling Robot experienced a malfunction while writing a traffic citation at the scene. Authorities aren't clear yet on what happened but when paramedics arrived at the scene they found the robot's probe impaled in the suspects anus and a blank blue screen indicating an IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL exception.
gimme a roomba, a broom stick and a pivoting webcam.
For the rent-a-cop, abnormalities are: black, brown, poor, disabled or disordered, etc., ... unprepared, or even intelligent. Being intelligent is just too suspicious. Can the robot do all that?
Everytime I visit the grocery store nearby, it's like a game of pacman. They have about six security guards per isle and they follow me around like dim-witted ghosts. I have to hurriedly snatch up my bread, coffee, and milk to make it safely to checkout.
to have my own personal robot army
No matter how shitty the AI, it can't be any dumber than the typical rent-a-cop.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Hopefully, they'll also be able to detect abnormalities in robot behavior... Before things get out of hand.
This reminds me of the movie Chopping Mall, where security robots patrol a mall, and (big surprise) a bunch of teenagers get stuck in there overnight.
"It aims to produce intelligent robo-sentinels that can patrol areas, and learn to detect abnormalities in human behavior."
Forget "abnormalities," if they just programmed the robots to detect and harass black people, you could replace the entire NYPD!
We already have seven of these. They're called D.O.Gs. Work great. Highly intelligent and programmable. Self directed. Loyal. Obedient. Self-replicating. Able to power themselves off of local rodents and farm wastes (meat & bones). They're also good at herding livestock.
Robot overlords joke keeps getting less and less funny.
Exterrminate! Exxxxterminate! Exterminate!
I don't have anything more to this joke. Fill in the details as you will.
Robots do not eat donuts.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Good luck patrolling the streets with machines composed of rare earth metals, proprietary design, and expensive hardware. Unless these things can protect themselves (hint: no), expect them to be walking (or rolling) targets for salvage.
intelligent robo-sentinels that can patrol areas, and learn to detect abnormalities in human behavior.
Waiting to cut out the deadwood.
Waiting to clean up the city.
Waiting to follow the worms.
Waiting to put on a black shirt.
Waiting to weed out the weaklings.
Waiting to smash in their windows
And kick in their doors.
Waiting for the final solution
To strengthen the strain.
Waiting to follow the worms.
Waiting to turn on the showers
And fire the ovens.
Waiting for the queens and the coons
and the reds and the jews.
Waiting to follow the worms.
Would you like to see Britannia
Rule again, my friend?
All you have to do is follow the worms.
Would you like to send our colored cousins
Home again, my friend?
All you need to do is follow the worms.
This is really where we need to balance our drive for automation with the need for human intuition and thinking.
I will bet that it will be easy at first to hack these robots.
I'm weary about more and more machines taking the place of humans in the workforce.
Actually, what I'm really weary about is that it's great to have new technologies which can replace human labor, but there should also be something to offset where the human labor gets a chance to learn new skills to get other types of employment.
After all, a person who can't get a fair chance at work, well, that's simply wrong, as it remove this person some dignity.
Society needs to balance all of this, so that everybody has a chance to contribute to something and get monetary rewards.
It's simple economics.
This is where for once, our government should step in and balance things out, for the good of the people, who are also taxpayers. Promote the work, promote human labor and promote the moving of currency so that everybody has a chance to live.
Will it be easy to trip up with false positives or other ways to tick the rent a rob cop?
Will their project blah blah blah? No, they'll be probably dead by the time we're actually replacing human rent-a-dicks with ED-209s in any notable numbers. But over a long enough time scale, isn't this sort of inevitable? If we don't blow ourselves up first, or make a singularity or something.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
God knows what all those rent-a-cop types would be doing if they couldn't get that job!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Many people will have trouble killing a human, because empathy creates a barrier. On the other hand, I suspect anyone can "kill" a robot without any hesitation nor any remorse.
Patrolling isles in prisons is one good use of these devices. One could slide by a call once every three minutes and report sounds of distress etc..
The greatest issue with this sort of thing is the loss of jobs for humans. There are large condominium projects where a swarm of these robots could be much better than one or two human guards. Fire sensors and scream detection as well as mobile cams could discourage all kinds of crime. But there are a considerable number of people who get by in life with pay checks from guard companies. Whet will become of them? Will we force them into crime to simply gain food and shelter?
I wish that would be the case. Then only those gun-slinging Libertarians would have a problem. But what if it's:
"Please act normal. You have 20 seconds to comply."
What if in the future the mere display of "abnormalities in human behavior", whatever that means to whoever decides, itself becomes a crime.
Coming soon: SKYNET!
If I recall correctly there are some military bases in the western United States that have had ARMED robot sentries for the better part of a decade. I suppose these are not exactly the smartest robots ever, little more than unmanned ATVs with sensor packages driving preprogrammed routes looking for movement/heat sources. If they find one they target their gun and wait for orders from a manned security post. While I don't have a real problem with security drones arming them with anything (lethal or non) is a bad idea, many authority figures already have god complex, I can only imagine it getting worse if they have the power of life, death & excruciating pain at the behest of their keyboard.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/02/army-gets-more/
Could their project eventually replace security guards with robots?
When you put it like that yes, By definition of could and eventually.
Just like everything else.
include having dark skin...
I just patented the robotic doughnut.
Robots don't leave "baked goods", get fleas, or crew on valuables. But viruses are common to both. No the viruses themselves but different virii.
BISHOP
Well, that explains it then. The A2s always were a bit twitchy. That could never happen now with our behavioral inhibitors. It is impossible for me to harm or by omission of action, allow to be harmed, a human being.
I am sure they were hit hard by the economic down turn as well and could use the work.
The reason they don't deliver pizza is because they can't get into and out of cars.
And mom could be president.
Everyone else is thinking Robocop II, and I'm thinking "Inspector Gadget".
But he WAS a rent-a-cop. Murphy was a real cop (both in fiction , of course)
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Fewer jobs for the not very bright and/or unskilled to do in the future. Soylent Green beckons perhaps.
For rent-a-cop, and and any other simple, "mindless" job. Security, manufacturing, anything, really. As soon as a robot is capable, the humans involved will be replaced, and the cost savings will go into the pockets of the executives and investors, as always.
'Your brain is God.' -- Dr. Timothy Leary
So.... We should arm dogs?
Meh. If it reduces the number of rent-a-cops I'm for it.
very nice topic, I like it very much!
robots in drones?
But will that have SCSI terminators?
As a bonus, the robots can protect us from The Terrible Secret of Space.
I just hope they don't get all philosophical. Remember the lesson of Bomb #20...
When I blow it to smithereens to get away.
I have been a rent a cop! That is how I financed becoming a Scientist of many sorts.
Most of the time it is a matter of saying "something is funny here and call the True hero's, the men and woman of law enforcement, and, then hiding safely.
I think a bot could easily report anomalies.
Tj
You aren't extrapolating adequately.
At some point, between efforts like this and the explicitly military efforts, the capabilities will be adequate (or seem to be) to allow autonomous mobile devices capable of overwhelming a human being.
Because of the power exerted by those who have money (or other power) and their desire to keep it, they will ensure they decide the behaviour of these machines. They won't listen to the majority - we see this every day - these people already have to justify having more and consuming more than everyone else, so they're both prepared now (or they woudn't be rich and powerful) or they will devise their own justification as needed.
And the people confronted by these machines will not be able to appeal to any sense of humanity as they can currently when confronted by a soldier or policeman or security offiicer. These machines will be perfect psychopaths by nature.
As this capability is devised, this WILL happen. The people with money and power are adequately corrupt in their justifications, and enough of them will not listen to reason. We already know that many of them do not. We see the results every day.
The people of the USA already are not enforcing their Constitution. Article 6 says any signed and ratified treaty "shall be the Supreme Law of the land" - and Reagan signed and the States ratified the UN Convention Against Torture - which requires the prosecution of anyone that uses torture. It's not optional at all under that treaty, and "Supreme Law" trumps anything the Congress or President decides.
So we know how people are going to act. There is no doubt.
Up until now, the vast majority has been able to overwhelm the selfishness of the rich and powerful when pushed beyond a certain limit. With large numbers of manufactured, unlistening machines to confront them, the vast majority will no longer be able to overwhelm the mental model the self-centered rich and powerful live their lives by.
Being richer or more powerful than others is a sign of insecurity. This is not cured by having more. It does not go away.
This will not happen tomorrow, but it will happen.
They come already armed, to the teeth, from birth. In addition to strong jaws that will crush a femur or sever an arm they have large claws. People don't tend to think about claws on a dog, more a cat ideal, but the reality is big dogs have big claws and they use them for grabbing and slashing.
a Big Dog with a much quieter control system and more agility would be very useful as a ULV for military operations and SWAT deployment.
Think Crying Wolf in Metal Gear.