Uber Hires a Robot To Patrol Its Parking Lot and It's Way Cheaper Than a Security Guard (fusion.net)

Fusion's Kashmir Hill is reporting about a five-foot-tall, white, egg-shaped robot that one can find at the company's inspection lot near Mission Bay in San Francisco. The K5 robot is a stand-in for a human security guard, and it sports multiple high-definition cameras for 360-degree vision, a thermal camera, a laser rangefinder, a weather sensor, a license-plate recognition camera, four microphones, and person recognition capabilities. The report adds:If someone suspicious comes into the lot, or starts messing with a car, the robot can't tase them or break out any weapons. Instead the robot can set off an alarm, send a signal to human security personnel, and record everything that person does to be used against them later by police. Customers of Knightscope, the company that manufactures the aforementioned robot don't buy the machines. They rent them, usually two at a time, so one can charge its battery while the other patrols. The cost is $7 an hour. "For the cost of a single-shift security guard, you get a machine that will patrol for 24 hours a day 7 days a week," said Stephens, citing wages of $25 to $35 hour for a human security guard.

Comments

Re:Bit optimistic on the human pay

[Archangel Michael]

The real cost of employment is closer to 3-4 times what the hourly employee makes. People complain about Minimum Wage jobs, have no idea that employing a person costs that much.

Re:Easily destroyed or disabled

[mark-t]

I suppose I can hire one security guard to "monitor" two or three areas (i.e., wait around for the robot to signal that something suspicious may be happening) and then go check it out, rather than hiring 2 or 3 security guards.

That is, I think, the entire point.

Re: Easily destroyed or disabled

[ShanghaiBill]

The problem is the penalty for the crime is not enough.

Not true. Severity of punishment has modest value as a deterrence. Much more important is probability of getting caught.

3 strikes and a life sentence

Several states, including California, implemented 3 strikes laws during the 1990s. In the following decades, it had no effect on crime rates compared to states that did not implement such laws.

America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, much much higher than China, Russia, Iran, etc. Our prison system is enormously expensive, and is mostly a waste of resources.

Labor burden

[sjbe]

Accountant here. No the burden rate for an hourly employee is NOT "3-4X" their take home pay. Generally speaking it is around a 50% markup of their gross (pre tax) salary. So if you pay someone $10/hour their real cost is probably $13-18 depending on the benefits offered and insurance costs.