The Dystopian Robot Dogs Have Entered Society

The U.S. is deploying Robot Dogs on the border and it's plain wrong.

While at AiSupremacy I try to cover A.I. at the intersection of news, there’s also many social implications of robotics, A.I. and automation I’d like to talk about.

In 2022, we are seeing new robots enter society. Yet instead of having a debate about it, we tend to cheer about it. Why?

Fair warning this is a bit of a sensationalistic Op-Ed. I’m just a bit outraged.

Substack is traditionally a provocative platform to stimulate debate and reaction and in this case I really wish I was better at that kind of storytelling. So I’ll let some of the pictures and videos speak for themselves.

Robot-Dog Patrols to Enforce Social Distancing

Robots at the Border Is Not the Answer

However the use of robot dogs patrolling borders like the one between the U.S. and Mexico is very dystopian.

Activists have argued that the tools in use – drones and towers equipped with night vision and radar – make the region dangerous to migrants.

I don’t know what the The US Department of Homeland Security is thinking. It sounds like a Black Mirror episode, and it’s a poor use of robots even as the use case for them in the military, police force and as guard dogs is obvious and immediate. It appears humans and governments (including military regimes) will use robots in nefarious ways and that’s concerning.

When the United States’ Department of Homeland Security announced in early February it was training quadruped “robot dogs” to help secure the US-Mexico border, the department’s spokesperson described the nearly 2,000-mile region as “an inhospitable place for man and beast, and that is exactly why a machine may excel there”. But how hospitable are parks and borders being patrolled by robot dogs?

This would not be my favorite robot to meet on the street or try to run from.

We know a stagflation economy will bring the migrant crisis in many parts of the world to a boiling point, we know climate change will as well over the next few decades just as Ukraine is seeing a record number of migrants entering Poland, Hungary and Romania in March, 2022.

But is putting robots at the border the answer?

The Poor Robot Dogs Are Just a Tactical Unit

“This S&T-led initiative focuses on Automated Ground Surveillance Vehicles, or what we call ‘AGSVs.’ Essentially, the AGSV program is all about … robot dogs.” Oh sorry Department of Defense, those de-humanizing robot dogs are really just AGSVs, that sounds so much better!

This is probably not a good use case of how we should be introducing technology into the world! The military, technological, security and political classes in the United States appear united in their desire to make robot dogs part of our future, and it makes me very uncomfortable, and I think in a sense, we should all be worried. This is the sort of thing I’d expect to see in China.

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I’m glad the robot you made can traverse all kinds of terrain. I guess you spend a lot of money on that. Taxpayer money no doubt. That quadrupedal 100-pound robot dog that can traverse all types of terrain such as sand, rocks and mountains, as well as human-built environments such as stairs. How very reassuring!

A Helpful “Paw” To Protect the Free World

DHS dressed up their statement with the kind of adorable language made to warm the hearts of dog lovers everywhere. “The Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) is offering US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) a helping hand (or ‘paw’),” read the release. Isn’t that cute? When you have to create killer robot dogs to protect your borders, you aren’t the bastion of the free world. When your bifurcated political system causes more civil unrest than good decisions, democracy isn’t good.

Man’s Best Robot Does Not seem Like a Good Friend

The NYC police is also piloting Spot robot dogs. Robot dogs are becoming all the rage in 2022. Mark my words, the robots are indeed coming. The New York police department has acquired a robotic police dog, known as Digidog, and has deployed it on the streets of Brooklyn, Queens and, most recently, the Bronx. Police enforcement using drones and “capture” autonomous units isn’t exactly the urban future I’m looking forwards to.

The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) unveiled the new technology on Tuesday, Feb. 1. The agency explained that, in this case, "man's best friend comes with a very futuristic twist." A country that loves firearms as much as America could have a very sick future relationship with attack drones and attack robots. Instead of “school shootings”, you’ll have mass casualty events with the deployment of dangerous drones and attack robots. Good luck enforcing those America.

The quadrupedal machines are built by Ghost Robotics, rival to the better-known Boston Dynamics (makers of the Spot robot). There will be more companies that profit on the demand for “robots of fear” and military and law enforcement use of robots trained for aggressive acts, equipped with fancy techie surveillance gear and basically taking jobs from people.

Militarized Robots Will Soon Kill Civilians

The real issue is that we keep rushing to militarized and technological solutions to what ultimately are human and political questions, creating more problems along the way. We will introduce automation in crime, human conflict and we are thus creating a world of more violence, more fear and more greed in the military industrial complex that forms part of the backbone of countries like the United States.

Each robot dog is outfitted with a bevy of sensors and able to transmit real-time video and information feeds. The devices are not yet in operation on the US-Mexico border, but a testing and evaluation program is under way in El Paso, Texas.

I am frankly astonished that people will accept killer robots so casually within our midst. Instead they’d prefer to protest about vaccinations and about wearing masks designed to protect humans and our fragile healthcare systems that have seen many nurses and doctors leave their jobs.

I don’t want to live in a world shared with robot dogs, who are just among the first robots that we will see in our streets, backyards, parks, borders and cities. This is just the beginning of well, a robot invasion.

Companies are peddling robots for the smart home, for the walking of real dogs and for the delivery of groceries among all other imaginable use cases. As if dumb algorithms have already made our lives and world less humane and more impersonal, what will the impact of robots have on the mental health of children, kids and anyone who crosses their path ten times a day in the future?

The battery-powered robots have a stunning facility on different types of terrain, yeah I get it.

The goal of the program is to reduce the time human agents are exposed to life-threatening risks, S&T said. Frankly I’m more concerned about the health and safety of the migrants crossing the border!

Robots of Fear Create the Necessary Conditions for a Police State

As the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes, “people who live along the border are some of the most heavily surveilled people in the United States. It’s sad that the U.S. thinks this is a human use of robots and surveillance. It’s truly quite perverse.

Let’s be honest, where do our civil liberties go in such a world? A massive amalgamation of federal, state and local law enforcement and national security agencies are flying drones, putting up cameras and just generally attempting to negate civil liberties – capturing the general goings-on of people who live and work in proximity to the border.” How the trend scales is where it becomes particularly dystopian.

So that black man who is shot by police (unjustly!), can now just be savagely taken down by a robot controlled by the police. I don’t even want to imagine scenarios of encounters along the border between migrants running for their lives and these robots. This is a madly sensationalistic topic for me, because I can see where it leads us as a species.

How the U.S. Uses Military Robots Cannot be Trusted

The machine can navigate autonomously or be controlled manually, and can be equipped with a number of payloads, including thermal and night vision cameras. They are part drones, part robot and part robo-cop. They will proliferate in society and create more fear than contributing in a positive way.

According to agent Brett Becker of the CBP Innovation Team (INVNT), along the border agents are confronted by smugglers of people, drugs, firearms or weapons of mass destruction. What better solution than to sick a robot dog on them? America is a culture that uses fear for profit, and to the rest of the world that’s a pretty toxic tendency. In the rest of the world, this is not how we operate.

The robot dogs would be one of many technologies deployed as part of the “smart wall”, but they aren’t limited to the border. US police departments started trying out the devices in recent years. Massachusetts state police tested the robot dogs in 2019. Police in Honolulu used the same model to remotely screen its unhoused citizens for Covid and scan their temperatures. Can you see the trend?

In the future, I’m sure robot dogs among other drones will be used to “police” protestors’ and monitor civil unrest. Why use people, just let the autonomous machines do the dirty job of displaying order upon the masses.

Police have used robots for decades, usually for remote monitoring or to respond to bomb threats. But reports of robot dogs draw fierce criticism, for several reasons. First, they’re debuting in public amid a nationwide discussion on police power. The local police agencies have been abusing their power for decades, especially in the racially charged United States. Do you trust the police with killer robots? I’m a white male, and I don’t.

Some of the varieties of robot dogs will literally look more like Robo-cop from the movies. I guess the Robot dogs business is doing well?

Now the Spot dog seems to have met its worthy competitor in the form of SN-3 Nova, a specialized robot built to accompany the maintenance technicians for inspection and repair tasks in places where it is too dangerous for humans to venture. Maintenance eh? I guess that means the construction job robots are coming soon as well.

Any task requiring manual labor in 2022, will likely be outsourced to robots by 2045. People in India or Indonesia (or Mexico for that matter) can remote control robots to do a job, those won’t be American jobs any longer. Talk about a remote job eh!

Killer Robots and Disrupting Jobs at Scale

In the past, Ghost Robotics has even shown off prototype models equipped with guns, though there is no suggestion the DHS is testing such payloads. Yes indeed, some of those cute paw Robot dogs will be killer robots, they are coming to town as well. Would you expect any different from America?

Then there’s the question of lethal force. These specific ground drones may not be armed, but Ghost Robotics is already infamous for the combination of robot dog and robot rifle. Where do we go from here? We know drones and delivery robots will flood our cities by 2030, robo-taxis will completely eliminate drivers by 2040. Robots will do most of the cleaning, construction and elderly care by 2050. So what gives, where will all the people be at?

China is also building robots dogs and robot spiders and all kinds or robots of its own mainly for the future of warfare. What we are seeing in Ukraine in the future will be done with a whole bunch of robots, drones and autonomous systems. Good luck leading a human resistance against such a swarm. That is quickly becoming the future of warfare.

First of course the robots are rolled out simply as surveillance units. The narrative is that are just there to protect us. The machines have been trialed for outdoor “sentry duty,” autonomously patrolling pre-set GPS waypoints while carrying cameras and sensors; for inspections of train cars at railyards, walking around and under carriages; and exploring residential buildings, including “a scenario that simulated being met by potentially hostile individuals.”

America, can’t even monitor potentially hostile individuals within its own civilian population. Mass shootings and deaths by police officers are the daily news of violence in America. Having robots capable of harming humans won’t make us a less violence species. Ultimately, it could have the opposite effect as criminals and civilians also use and purchase drones capable of lethal force.

In the future surveillance drones will be so small you won’t even know your privacy is being eroded.

A video camera or sensor package (known as a “payload”) can be attached to a robot dog. Photo: Courtesy Ghost Robotics.

From surveillance drones the size of bees working in swarms to a more tactical ground unit like a robot dog that can jump, run up stairs and “arrest you”, you can see how innovations in robots will lead humans to seek to police, control and terrorize each other. This is not a positive use of our military and defense spending budgets. This creates a world of more fear-mongering and tyranny.

It’s important to note how this is a target for American civilization. Incidentally, US policy not only does not “prohibit the development or employment” of killer robots (officially known as “lethal autonomous weapon systems,” or Laws) but also opposes any international preemptive ban. America is a leader in the invasive robot dog autonomous unit.

In such a world policed and militarized by robots, there will be no “volunteers” to put up a human resistance. Because such a campaign would be suicide and futile. Public protests could become deadly in a world where civil unrest means being pressured by autonomous units designed to respond to your every move. This is not right and we should be talking about it before it’s too late.

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