As described by Mayor Eric Adams, “This is below minimum wage, no bathroom breaks, no meal breaks.”
According to the New York Times,
Its official name is K5, and its California-based maker, Knightscope, describes it as a “fully autonomous outdoor security robot.” It is currently used in hospitals, malls, airports, warehouses and casinos, and will soon be deployed in the Times Square subway station, the city’s busiest underground transit hub.
The robot, armed with four cameras, will record video but not audio. It will not employ facial recognition and — at a moment when the mayor is calling for vital city agencies to slash 5 percent of their budgets — the cost of leasing it averages out to about $9 per hour.
The K5 can serve as a “physical deterrence,” according to Knightscope. It is weatherproof, travels at a top speed of 3 miles per hour and can provide 360-degree recording in high definition and issue audio messages.
When a button is pressed to call for assistance, the robot issues a series of beeps and then says: “This call may be recorded for your safety.” It will connect to the Wi-Fi network in the subway.
The NYT wrote
The robot was put into service last night and will start mapping the station at Times Square for two weeks. ‘It will be accompanied by a human officer from midnight to 6 a.m. to introduce K5 to the public. There will be docks where K5 can recharge, like a giant Roomba, the self-directing vacuum,’ the NYT added.
Once the pilot is completed the robot is expected to ‘patrol the station’s mezzanine level, but not the platforms, becoming a “mobile camera” that straphangers could use to call for help.’
Public safety and justice are the prerequisites to more prosperity, particularly in our subway system. When people feel unsafe to use our trains and buses, it impacts our economic stability as well.
Adams added
Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, a privacy and civil rights group, ripped on Adams’ decision to introduce this robot.
If the mayor thinks that aren’t enough cameras in Times Square, then he’s more out of touch than I realized.
It’s more surveillance theater. This is a mayor who doubles down on public relations stunts rather than public safety any chance he gets.
Just several weeks ago NYC Police launched security drones to surveil people’s private residences on Labor Day weekend, to check and see if people were being safe during their celebrations.
In April Adams and the NYPD unveiled several new robot police to monitor the streets and track crime, with one bot having the capability to fire projectiles.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
For I have set my face against this city for evil, and not for good, saith the LORD: […] Jeremiah 21:10(a)
While this stupid-looking blob of a robot cannot perform overly much, it is still even more draconian surveillance being felt in the city; for which will continue to get more and more pervasive, including across the rest of the country.
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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The way NYC is; that thingy should have tazzers to hold wrongdoers until the police get there.
I’ve heard from a New York City inhabitant that the city has placed other security robots in certain areas and the denizens there have managed to destroy them. This 400-lb robot may be a little harder to dismantle, but then again, it could be just like the robot dud in Robocop who will have to be disengaged the first time it decides to club some law-abiding subway passenger to death.