Slashdot Mirror
Parents Upset After Their Boy Was 'Knocked Down and Run Over' By A Security Robot (abc7news.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via KGO-TV: PSA: Beware of dangerous security robots at the Stanford Shopping Center! After a young boy was "knocked down and run over" by one of the Stanford Shopping Center security robots, the boy's parents want to help prevent others from getting hurt. KGO-TV reports: "They said the machine is dangerous and fear another child will get hurt. Stanford Shopping Center's security robot stands 5' tall and weighs 300 pounds. It amuses shoppers of all ages, but last Thursday, 16-month-old Harwin Cheng had a frightening collision with the robot. 'The robot hit my son's head and he fell down facing down on the floor and the robot did not stop and it kept moving forward,' Harwin's mom Tiffany Teng said. Harwin's parents say the robot ran over his right foot, causing it to swell, but luckily the child didn't suffer any broken bones. Harwin also got a scrape on his leg from the incident." Teng said, "He was crying like crazy and he never cries. He seldom cries." They are concerned as to why the robot didn't detect Harwin. "Garage doors nowadays, we're just in a day in age where everything has some sort of a sensor," shopper Ashle Gerrard said. "Maybe they have to work out the sensors more. Maybe it stopped detecting or it could be buggy or something," shopper Ankur Sharma said. The parents said a security guard told them another child was hurt from the same robot just days before. They're hoping their story will help other parents be more careful the next time they're at the Stanford Shopping Center. The robots are designed by Knightscope and come equipped with self-navigation, infra-red cameras and microphones that can detect breaking glass to support security services.
I, for one, welcome our new robotic overlords.
one and done. cha ching $$
Why does a glass breaking sensor need to move? Why does it need to be 300 lbs.
Such sensors are standard on home alarm systems and are small and cheap. Also they have pretty good range.
Sounds like somebody just wanted to make a cheap thing into a very high markup item because "robot!"
Or cost cutting.
For a design like that it should really have a ring of ultrasonic, infrared, camera, or similiar sensors affixed pointing around the radius of the robots tread path and set up to stop the robot if anything is projected to go under it.
Maybe it was running on the Tesla autopilot algorithm!
I kid, I kid...
It detected that he was Asian, so it didn't shoot.
Eventually children will evolve a mechanism to prevent them being run over by wayward security robots, and the strong will survive.
Why do I get the feeling a lawsuit isn't far behind this announcement? The parent's description of the child's horror and emotional turmoil seem ready made for a lawyer to grab up and sue Knightscope, the mall, and every business (with money) in earshot and eyesight of the event.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
In a world of autonomous machines, people and animals are squishy bugs. If this sounds extreme, consider how it is actually the case in the world of automobiles, and how previous to that the risk was horse carriages. We can make devices good at not running over people, but never perfect.
Bruce Perens.
Seriously, I'm sure the kid was trying to "play" with the robot, it didn't want any of that so it decided to get away no matter what.
Should send the kid to camp.
It seems the robot has a lidar sensor on the top and maybe another lidar or simple IR distance sensor midlevel about a 2.3ft above the ground. A little kid could walk beside it without the robot seeing the kid and the wide base could then easily run over something. Seems like it needs some low level bump sensors or maybe not run it in a crowded area.
Right now robots like that kill less people than vending machines. Lets not worry about things that don't happen.
But apparently it can't detect breaking bones.
#DeleteChrome
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The phrase "knocked down and run over" should not be in quotes since it is simply describing what happened.
Quotes are used to either
- distance the author from a statement--meaning that the author does not agree with or holds suspicion over the validity of the statement
- actually quote what a person said (which in some cases overlaps with the reasoning of the first item)
In this article neither is the case.
I mean that child will have to live with the disfigurement and parents will be paying for his constant hospital bills for many years to come!
Oh the humanity! Will someone think of the children!
But seriously, whilst I'm not familiar with these robots have they prevented any crimes - especially violent crime or even help catch/prosecute the offender? If so, then a child getting mildly hurt is insignificant unless there is potential for more serious injuries in future. Children are resilient, the ones that may not get over this are irrational parents.
If you can't trust this thing to detect that it's attempting to run over something like a child, can you trust it to accurately detect and report that a crime is in progress?
To be fair, the child was given 20 seconds to comply.
Thanks for your little SJW cryfest but the victim was the child. The perpetrators were the negligent parents.
...of parents blaming anyone and anything except themselves for their bad parenting skills.
A 16-month-old should not be left unattended (in public) long enough to be able to run into (or get hit by) anything, let alone a moving robot. In the safety of your own home, sure, kids that age run wherever their legs will take them. But not in crowded public places.
Not boring if the robot in question had the body of an alligator.
Let me guess.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ0eV39ztXo
Letting your kids swarm around a 300 lb robot like its a big toy, that might have something to do with this incident. You wouldn't let a bunch of kids swarm a 300lb security guard while he's walking his rounds so why is it OK when its a robot?
"He was crying like crazy and he never cries."
Really? A 16 month old child that never cries? I don't believe that.
Maybe the robot is related Bender Bending Rodríguez.
In some distant future, long after the Man vs Machine wars have ended, when they ask where Robophobia first manifested, we'll be able to point to this particular time in History.
More police are shot by whites than by blacks in the United States.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Total dickhead story.
"Parents upset" is the whole story. Inquiring minds wanna know and shit. Next story.
They will never be able to replace a actual persons ability to do the job properly.
More whites get shot by the police than blacks in the United States.
Small children can sometimes fall out of an adult's peripheral vision, if they are concentrating on what is further ahead of them rather than on what happens to be on or near ground-level of otherwise familiar territory. This has actually happened to me, and I stopped immediately, as I realized I had not seen whatever it was that I would have otherwise walked right on top of. Fortunately for me, the child was not seriously hurt, but was largely startled by what had happened, and the parents were thankfully not vindictive. Of course, this robot also stayed on its course, which may have led to injuries being more serious than if it had stopped immediately upon contact, as I did.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Blacks are LESS LIKELY to be shot by police than whites:
In shootings in these 10 cities involving officers, officers were more likely to fire their weapons without having first been attacked when the suspects were white. Black and white civilians involved in police shootings were equally likely to have been carrying a weapon. Both results undercut the idea of racial bias in police use of lethal force.
Ooops.
You are a failure as a human being.
We live in an age where we can't even make a text editor work properly and my front door keeps connecting to China.
What's the likelihood that we can make a security robot?
Just wait till they start giving these things tasers and pepper spray.
young boy was "knocked down and run over" by one of the Stanford Shopping Center security robots
let that be a lesson to the rest of you, the Stanford Shopping Center is bot territory! ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Since when does a robot get to make its' own rules. Either way it is a motor operated vehicle in a pedestrian environment and that means that even if the kid was running circles around it the fault lies with the vehicle or the operator. What would be interesting and precedent setting is who would be found at fault ? The programmer, and/or designer, or the people who let it loose in an environment it was pretty clearly not ready for. If you started running floor polisher in a crowded mall and ran over a child I don't think there would be any doubt about fault. That said people do need to keep a closer eye on their kids.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
http://www.businesswire.com/ne...
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
Unless they shot a church up full of black people, then Burger King.
Does he NEVER cry, or does he SELDOM cry? Which is it?! In the words of the illustrious D. TRUMP, "something's definitely going on here."
It was established in TFS that folks love the robot and the assumption is something like that is safe. The parent could be walking 10 feet away letting the boy check out the neato robot and he would have been run down before anyone but Bruce Lee could do anything.
Why is everybody's kneejerk reaction to blame the parent?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
We have no evidence here that the bot is more likely to step on somebody's foot than say Paul Blart.
Table-ized A.I.
White Robots?
than a typical obese American?
Stanford Shopping Center's security robot stands 5' tall and weighs 300 pounds. . . . 'The robot hit my son's head and he fell down facing down on the floor and the robot did not stop and it kept moving forward,'"
One takes their own life in their hands any time they go out in public nowadays, especially when they go stores. Get that much mass moving and momentum takes hold.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Please stand aside. You have twenty seconds to comply.
The subject did not comply. After several warnings with increasing level of severity:
Four... three... two... one... I am now authorized to use physical force!
And there you go.
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
A security guard told them another child was hurt from the same robot just days before.
The nice point here is that we can rely on this helpful witness, which job's is threatened by the robot: he will not cover the mess.
IIRC there is little bone to break in a 16 month old child: most of the skeleton is still cartilage, which can bent a lot without breaking.
Vending machines kill people?
Are you talking about the junk food in the machines?
Last I checked, most vending machines didn't really go around looking for people to run over. Is there some new kind of motorized zombie vending machine? Perhaps they grab your arm when you reach in for the Coke, pull you in and ferment your dead body into... more Coke?
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Unfortunate the boy was not killed by the Blessed Robot performing its tasks to kill the Unwanted.
Bless Be The Dead.
"Vending machines kill people?"
Yes, in fact you're more likely to die from a vending machine accident than you are a shark attack.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
One of Knightscope's corporate rivals in robotic security development, Omni Consumer Products, announced that it has had tremendous success with it's own product designed to assist in inner city law enforcement. In additional news, Omni Consumer Products thanked board member Mr. Kinney on his lifelong dedication to the company, and wished him a happy retirement.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
You can buy our robots in any color you like, so long as it's white.
Eat your heart out, Henry Ford!
No, idiots tip them on top of themselves trying to nudge the candy bar out.
We going to sue
Stanford Shopping Center
Knightscope
who ever made the Sensors
and any independent contractors
What was broken was the First Law of Robotics - what would Dr. Asimov say?
This thread is useless without any video, infrared or not...
Which is meaningless because the populations aren't 50/50.
What's the breakdown of X/100,000 of each population? Or do you only like skewed numbers?
And as the robot rolled away, a tiny door opened on its underside and out dropped a stolen gun, landing right next to the boy...
Both your post and that of the GP are worthless without adjusting the (missing) numbers so that the results are per capita.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Better to laugh than to cry, and crying is what will happen if Hillary is president.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
We don't know the exact situation. In close conditions, the child could have been as little as one staggering jump away from veering into the robot's path. Do you expect the parents to have 50 ms reaction times 24/7 ?
The robot needs to be re-engineered. The design team screwed up pretty badly.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
exterminate! exterminate! exterminate!
I posted this story FOUR HOURS before you did, and by the way why is mine marked in red as 'SPAM'??!?
Come correct, Slashdot.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Now that it's tasted human blood, it will have to be put down. It's the only way to be sure.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Let's hope so!
faggot
Should that not matter if they're both talking about the same place with same number of people?
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
If a vending machine lands on top of you, no way in hell was it an accident. It was you trying to shake loose a candy bar.
I wonder if it can tell the difference between breaking glass and someone playing a recording of breaking glass. Does griefing a robot count as a crime?
... Or one jump into traffic, or off into a subway track. If you can't control your kid in a mall, perhaps they shouldn't have been parents. Then to blame the robot for their inattentiveness.
Why can just anyone have kids? No regulation whatsoever, no background checks, no permits or license, just on a whim anyone can have the immense power and awesome responsibility to raise children.
Both your post and that of the GP are worthless without adjusting the (missing) numbers so that the results are per capita.
Wrong. If the police are killing more black men than white men, while being killed by more white men than black men, that is sufficient information to know that something is rotten, and not in Denmark.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The robot needs to be re-engineered. The design team screwed up pretty badly.
This is assuming that the story is accurate, and that the kid didn't just twist his ankle while running circles around the robot, and then bump into it when he fell. Absent any video, I'm going to have to take a pass on declaring judgement here.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Pretty insensitive posts modded up here.
A child was crushed and iirc killed by a revolving door on roppongi hills in tokyo when it opened some years ago because sensors were not low enough to detect the child. It should be required reading.
No, I expect 200ms reaction times 24/7, which would have been sufficient for your scenario.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
That was my point, Chris.
You are welcome on my lawn.
But under what circumstances?
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Granted, the robot should have been designed to take little kid craziness into account, but I'm betting the direct cause of the incident was said craziness.
Hasta la vista, baby.
Once again, another example of parents who can't keep their kid under control and well-behaved.
That said, maybe the company should have made the robot scarier looking.
Our 16 moth old got knocked down and run over by our robotic lawn mower (7 stiches!).
Children that size are too small to trigger the angle/tilt safety sensors, too weak to run, too slow to move, and generally illogical when they do move... unlike a pet or wild animal... which would move away from the robot/object rapidly...
Human children that age are often unaware that they can move away from things... and lack instincts on what is dangerous... we have to learn. The only thing the robot could do in this case is stop and wait for the child to be removed... But how to sense that and not misinterpret something else as that event? That's the problem.
In my case... I altered the mower's program such that it is only active when the child is asleep (and can't be near it), and she'll gradually get bigger and in a few years be in the proper behavior/size envelope for the safety systems to react to her properly.
A white American has a 2 in a million chance of being killed by a cop per year. A black American has a 5 in a million chance of being killed by a cop per year.
Many people are outraged over those odds.
Time for a robot lynching.
The robots are designed by Knightscope and come equipped with self-navigation, infra-red cameras and microphones
In the future, parents should check for a pulse to make sure their children are not undead before taking them to any mall with robots. Safety first.
Good job.... you Googled and found the first stat featured at the top of the page.. You are such a smart person.
Not per capita.
Fact is some little children can scream, yell, beat, punch, run, brake, insult your family, tell you your luck for the last year, threaten the rest of your life s income, convince others to come and do the same to you... and everybody around just looks either fishy eye or with a smile of how cute the little boy. Particularly if it is African or Indian. These are good news indeed.
(Different AC here) I hate that this is modded troll. When I was growing up, I had to hold hands with a parent or other adult at all times when in a public place like a mall where there are lots of people, and/or lots of places to run off to. I got injured plenty as a child because I'd run off and do stuff without supervision, but never in a place like a mall.
I feel like I'm going crazy with people mentioning things like leashes or alternatives. To be clear - I understand leashes can be useful, but we're talking about a crowded area with people you don't know. If you look away for only a few seconds, someone could snatch your kid, the kid could run off, etc. It's rare for a kidnapping to happen like that, but it has happened before. You should be trying to reach 5-sigma on knowing where your kid is at in these circumstances. It's tough to do when shopping, but that's the cost of taking your kid shopping with you. And mind you we're talking about a 16 month old here - an age where they *love* running around and exploring everywhere they can go.
16 months isn't an age where you call out to them and they return. It isn't an age where they know to look for an authority figure (mall cop, or any mall/store employee) who can assist them in finding you if they get lost. It is an age where you, as a parent, need to be doing 95% of their thinking for them when in public (and the remaining 5% is their natural curiosity, constrained by your 95%). And one of those thinks you should have is "I shouldn't let my 16 month old infant near a 300 lb robot". This is no different than any of the other large machines that can potentially injure a child out in public like escalators (which are also common in malls), adults in [un]powered wheelchairs (who simply see the child too late before something bad happens), those ferrying vehicles in airports, etc. In this case the parents are at fault for letting their kid near a large, heavy, moving machine. Whether it's a robot or an escalator makes no difference to me. Robots aren't sentient, they are machines. Machines, just like humans, are prone to errors, malfunctions, etc.
I don't see the robot at fault any more than I would an escalator, and I only see the manufacturer as being slightly at fault, because this is a machine that can move around on its own and should be able to do so without injury to humans/animals in the area or damage to property. But there is absolutely some fault on the parents for allowing their infant near a dangerous object.
We had special rules for streets and parking lots (I used to announce "parking lot rules", because those places are specifically dangerous. So are subway platforms. There's usually no immediate danger at the mall, except at obvious stationary points.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Cry moar.
Not sure how race played into this
I love how some commenters in this article talk about how the parents should have anticipated the 300 lb security robot might be a hazard for their kid, and taken steps to keep their kid away from it.
You have a shiny, light-flashing robot that looks similar to EVA from Wall-E and designed to look friendly and nice. You better design the robot to safely handle kids coming up to it if you are putting it in a mall. The argument that kids should not be brought to malls is stupid. Who do you think malls target to bring money to them if not parents of kids, especially mothers of small children?
Good luck being the mall that says they don't care about child safety and keep away from our robots or we will run over you.
People have difficulties of understanding sarcasm and caricaturization. The joke was probably too fresh after the recent events?
I can't tell if this is joke or is serious. It was modded as serious, so I'll make that assumption
You cannot completely eliminate risk from your or anyone else's life. A toddler can easily prove that an area that has been thought to be "safe" has exposed electrical outlets, discarded cigarette butts, or other safety issues and anyone who has had to care for one will probably agree (feel free to post a response). To this end, a mall is not a construction site and are usually constructed with kids in mind (even older malls up through the 1980's it was assumed that women were mom's and did the shopping--usually with the kids).
What you want is something between placing the child in a bubble, or strapping them down anytime they are outside them home (and then wondering why their legs are suffering from atrophy according to the doctor). Living is risk, and kids are going to be exposed to it. Further, some unique things (like Robo-Mallcop) are hard to analyze. Is it 25 pounds / kg of plastic or 100 pounds / 60kg of metal? Dose it run off of supercaps or lead-acid? You can't expect a random parent to know this or what other safety features are built in. You _can_ expect the designers to know the range of people that Robo-Mallcop will encounter in a mall.
Maybe it was playing Pokemon Go.
why the fuck these parents weren't watching their child? Mom and Dad were probably chasing fucking Pokemon and couldn't be bothered to keep an eye on their precious snowflake until they heard him screaming because he walked into the robot. Sure, the robot shouldn't keep trying to move forward when it's obviously obstructed, but the point remains that if they'd been responsible parents, who SHOULD BE watching their not even two year old child, this wouldn't have happened.