The artwork was generated by DALL·E 2
Today I watched Code 8: Part II. It is a middle ground between cyberpunk and today’s world and about people with superpowers. In the middle of the movie, they showed Robot Dogs working like those built by Boston Dynamics. So, I was thinking, when will we see those Robot Dogs on the streets in real life? To be honest, I was a bit out of track and not up to date, but I simply Googled the term Boston Dynamics Dogs / Robots and found quite interesting videos and articles. Then I remembered that I read something like a half year ago that the German Police in North Rhine-Westphalia purchased one of those robots and painted them like a Police Car, and it looks like they actually already use Police Robot Dogs, for example, in areas where it’s dangerous for others to investigate, as we see in this article where the Robot Dog was involved in the investigation.
The interesting thing is that guides about, for example, Boston Robotics’ robot called “Spot” are quite publicly available, like this one: SPOT User Guide - Boston Robotics. It’s also described how to remove the battery (on page 24) of the above User Guide where it describes how to remove the Robot’s Battery in case of danger. It’s quite easy to pull out the battery to turn off the robot. But more interesting are those texts in the above User Guide:
The operator is responsible for ensuring that all
people who may come into close proximity of
Spot are aware of robot hazards and receive Spot
safety training.
- Keep at least 2m away from Spot and avoid the robot’s path.
- It can be difficult to predict which way Spot will move next.
- Anyone passing Spot during autonomous patrol should avoid its path and maintain a 2m distance between Spot at all times.
- Do not stand between Spot and a wall if this could violate the 2m or greater acceptable safety parameter.
- Never stand downhill or otherwise below Spot.
So does this mean that every government’s citizen needs to get training before those robots can be used? Really interesting.