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China's New Policing Computer Is Frontend Cattle Prod, Backend Supercomputer (computerworld.com)
Earlier this year, we learned about China's first "intelligent security robot," which was said to include "electrically charged riot control tool." We now know what this robot is up to, and what its developed unit looks like. Reader dcblogs writes: China recently deployed what it calls a "security robot" in a Shenzhen airport. It's named AnBot and patrols around the clock. It is a cone-shaped robot that includes a cattle prod. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which look at autonomous system deployments in a report last week, said AnBot, which has facial recognition capability, is designed to be linked with China's latest supercomputers. AnBot may seem like a 'Saturday Night Live' prop, but it's far from it. The back end of this "intelligent security robot" is linked to China's Tianhe-2 supercomputer, where it has access to cloud services. AnBot conducts patrols, recognizes threats and has multiple cameras that use facial recognition. These cloud services give the robots petascale processing power, well beyond onboard processing capabilities in the robot. The supercomputer connection is there "to enhance the intelligent learning capabilities and human-machine interface of these devices," said the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review.
How awesome will this be when it gets hijacked for service in an IoT botnet?
What could possibly go wrong?
Self Defense - A Human Right www.a-human-right.com
..this isn't funny; in fact, I find it to be distinctly unfunny. Knowing China and it's human rights/civil rights record, sounds to me more like 'Human and Civil Rights Violator Robot' than anything regarding 'security', unless you want to look at in in the vein of 'security of the Chinese communist regime'. In my opinion, it's bad enough when you have humans oppressing humans, but it's an order of magnitude worse when you have a machine oppressing humans; naturally these 'bots could be ordered to do anything to anyone, up to and including killing them, and since they're not alive, have no conscience, have no emotions, they'll just do it. This is a dark day for Chinese citizens if you ask me.