The robot revolution began long ago, and so did the killing. One day in 1979, a robot at a Ford Motor Company casting plant malfunctioned—human workers determined that it was not going fast enough. And so twenty-five-year-old Robert Williams was asked to climb into a storage rack to help move things along. The one-ton robot … Continue reading On Robots Killing People
Allow me to divulge a bit of behind-the-scenes intrigue regarding the San Francisco Fire Department (SFFD): they have an undying affection for oversized, cumbersome, and fiscally extravagant trucks. In fact, their adoration for these mammoth vehicles knows no bounds, leading them into a protracted skirmish with advocates for pedestrian safety. You see, the streets of … Continue reading Cruise is Fighting With SFFD Over a Pedestrian Death. The Robots Might Be Right.
Calling it their “Week of Cone”, residents of SF reduced the threat to the city from renegade “driverless” vehicles by gently placing a traffic cone to completely shut them down. It had all the hallmarks of the extremely successful SFMTrA movement of 2016. As you may recall, Tesla’s “driverless” software back in 2016 murdered two … Continue reading Trivial Hacks Disable Driverless Taxi Infrastructure
Robots are essentially created to serve as surveillance devices that monitor and interact with their surroundings. This makes them susceptible to being utilized as informants by law enforcement agencies. Information gathering (IG) algorithms aim to intelligently select the mobile robotic sensor actions required to efficiently obtain an accurate reconstruction of a physical process, such as … Continue reading US Police Warrant Turns Any and Every Robot Into a Surveillance Tool