Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to buy at least a million dollars worth of robots from Boston Dynamics, the company that makes the dog-like SPOT robots, with the purpose of improving “officer safety,” according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announcement.
The future is Chappie.
But Boston Dynamics has ethics and won’t do business with ICE, right? Right??
In the past, they held out and said no. I hope they stand by it now.
Don’t hold your breath
The dog will do it for you
Eh… $$$$$ > ethics unfortunately.
I just read that corporations are starting to cozy up to Democrats, in anticipation of the Democratic Bloodbath in the Midterms. Perhaps they’ll see that supporting MAGA and ICE is a bad idea.
Under a Democratic congress the robot dogs will have gay pride flags painted on them.
They will play a pre-recorded message of encouragement (“It Gets Better”) before opening fire.
Depends on who owns them these days. Last I heard they had changed hands a couple times.
According to Wikipedia, it’s Hyundai at the moment.
Which ICE raided in Alabama last year. Hopefully they remember.
Georgia
These are the robot dogs with the big red button on them you can press and they turn off.
Some moronic swat team used it recently and then lost it because the barricaded suspect kicked the button.
Its also really easy to yank the battery out if you need to. The battery also only lasts an hour and a half, tops, and depending what attachments are on it the weight and power draw will shorten that. They will only be useful in quick scenarios like breaching buildings in a raid. Range from the controller isnt very far either without wifi connection, you have to follow it around in unconnected locations.
People tend to imagine strapping a gun to it but really its a scouting tool. Open a door (awkwardly) walk in and look around. Then people follow in and do the work.
They also fall for the classic ‘put a blanket and/or some leaves over a hole in the ground’ pitfall trap.
They also trigger tripwires pretty regularly and don’t have much, if any defense against snares. Dumb shit like oil\lube on the ground will work too
Hell, I never thought of it before but just throwing a blanket over it would probably do a lot. Would be a fairly simple way to disable it long enough to get to the battery or off button.
Memories of the fourth Doctor foiling a Dalek by putting his hat on its eye-stalk.
Benn Jordan did a good video about this:
Hopefully if this happens someone will make a helpful infographic on how to disable them
It’s almost like Congress shouldn’t have given a bunch of low IQ fascists a blank fucking check.
“Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”- Mark Twain
Echoes of McNamara’s Morons
So these robots assist with breaking in to private homes in violation of the constitution? Because it doesn’t count if a human doesn’t break in first?
I recall that a common January 6 defense was “the window was already broken”
Everyone who said that deserves to get robbed after an anonymous person breaks all their windows
Schrödingers cop. Warrantless search? Not a cop, doesn’t count. Scratch its paint? Assaulting a police officer.
Oh god the terrorism enhancement for damaging robots will definitely apply
We need to normalize absolutely wrecking these robots in public.
Beat them to death with a flock pole
I was just wondering how hard it would be to rip a fucking leg off. I’m an industrial mechanic. Bolt cutters? Tin snips.
I’m hoping for instructional videos, as well as tips on tools that work well for this. There is technique to be learned.
I don’t even like the delivery robots.
I remember that Black Mirror episode.
I forgot how horrifying this episode was. Part of me wants to rewatch, part of me thinks it’s too close to our current reality.
It’s such a great episode. Because while the thing is terrifying, it’s also vaguely dog-like and clumsy in some of its movements, so you can’t help but anthropomorphise a bit.
But then something that looks kind of cute can still kill you dead.
No one is going to tell everyone else which show and episode you guys are talking about?
It’s called Metalhead, from Black Mirror (you could have also just asked, instead of this comment, would have gladly said so).
It’s called Metalhead, from Black Mirror
Thanks!
(you could have also just asked, instead of this comment, would have gladly said so)
(That was me asking in an indirect way. You also didn’t have to put that sentence in parenthesis, I still would have read it!)
That’s black mirror I believe, one of the earlier seasons. Don’t recall the exact episode though!
A million dollars worth? So four?
more like a half
If you think this is all for immigration enforcement, you haven’t been paying attention.
My esteem for Boston Dynamics just went into the toilet. They know exactly what ICE is. What a way to end 15 years of innovation and admiration.
They’re were always going to sell these things to the likes of the military and the police, it was unrealistic to expect them not to. So every time they came out and said they wouldn’t do anything draconian like that I just rolled my eyes.
If anyone is surprised by this that’s on them for being naive.
Just curious, where is the battery located on these things? Perhaps a nice, spring loaded puncturing device could get through the chassis and puncture the battery
Oh no! Do you think he’ll be okay?!
Relax the battery lasts for approx 3 hrs. Did you ever wonder why these dogs aren’t used by military who asked for it? Poor battery duratipn is the answer.
approx 3 hrs.
I’m done for if they ever come after me. My battery lasts about 2 minutes on a good day.
They’ll just find a way to make the droigs powered by consuming human flesh. They’ll learn that they need to continuously refill on the stuff or face permanent shutdown, so they’ll just get better and better at their job.
3 hrs is a shitload of time to get stuff done though
Seriously, who the fuck posts paywalled shit anymore? Especially from places like 404 where neither u-block nor reader mode gets around it.
If you sign up they let you read it for free. But yes archive link is good to provide as most will not bother to sign up
Did you forget the /s?
What /s ?
"Free members get access to posts like this one along with an email round-up of our week’s stories.
I even have an account and have access to the article.
So, Black Mirror is literally just the real life “Don’t Invent The Torment Nexus” meme.
I thought these super creepy gun mount ready robots were built to help blind people or something? Who saw this sort of abuse coming??
Just put a kitchen gun on the mount.
