According to the Boston-based radio station WBUR, the Massachusetts State Police of August, tested till November, a robots the company Boston Dynamics. It is a dog-like robot, named Spot.

A police spokesman said that Spot, like the other robots of the Department, was used for mobile remote monitoring. He provided the official images of suspicious objects. And he came to potentially dangerous places. The robot is equipped with a powerful 360-degree camera and a robotic arm.

civil rights activists demanded a gift of records

activists are concerned. You ask whether the robot programs of the police are enough supervised. The test for application of the robot, the Bomb squad came out, thanks to the civil rights organization American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts to the Public. They demanded that the police handover the records of the Tests and submitted them to the radio station WBUR. Exact Details on the inserts were missing, however.

the Spot, according to the manufacturer company Boston Dynamics is a Universal robot with an open API (application programming interface). As a result, customers can customize the Spot with it’s own Software. Boston Dynamics does not want to arm the robot according to the Vice-President, Michael Perry. Perry said that the leases contain a clause that prescribes that the robot is not used in a way that “people physically harm or intimidate” would.

manufacturer wants to robot arm

according to Perry, one of the reasons why the company decides to lease rather than for sale. Boston Dynamics would like to control which companies get access to Spot.

The police of Massachusetts, stresses that she still has armed never a robot. But there were already at least one case, in the USA, a robot has been killed. In 2016, the Dallas police used a with explosives and armed the bomb disposal robot to kill a sniper. The man killed five police officers.

The civil rights movement, the ACLU calls for more transparency and calls for guidelines for the use of police robots. It must be defined how and when a robot is allowed to be used. (jd)

Created: 29.11.2019, 20:51 PM