The Roboguard Revolution Is Short-Circuiting (404media.co) 30
alternative_right shares a report from 404 Media: Robotics companies promise that video-camera-toting security robots can deter and detect crime. But many companies are rethinking the approach after a trail of canceled contracts and questions about whether the artificial intelligence-powered bots are meeting the needs of businesses and local governments. Proof News found evidence of at least 21 security robot deployments since 2015. We contacted contract holders and combed news articles and determined that at least 13 of those programs have ended. Silicon Valley-based Knightscope secured the most security robot contracts, according to Proof's analysis, and also suffered the bulk of cancellations.
For example, New York City's then-Mayor Eric Adams installed a Knightscope robot on the overnight shift at the Times Square subway station, but the program was scrapped when the pilot expired in 2024. City leaders did not respond to Proof News' questions about why the robot wasn't renewed. By the end of its assignment, it was reportedly gathering dust in an empty storefront. Outside Columbus, Ohio, the city of Dublin pulled the plug on a Knightscope robot in May, ending its two-year pilot program after less than 10 months. The city enlisted the robot, dubbed DubBot, to patrol a downtown park, but city spokeswoman Robyn Gray said it "did not fully meet our operational needs," and failed to identify any criminal incidents or lead to any tickets or arrests.
[...] Seeking a new path forward in the security industry, Knightscope CEO William Santana Li said the company is forging a new model, combining its robots and AI-powered software with another key ingredient: human security guards. Knightscope announced it purchased Event Risk LLC, a national security guard firm, earlier this year. Knightscope has incurred net losses since inception in 2013, according to its most recent quarterly filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and is $273 million in debt. Knightscope hopes its pivot to incorporate people will give it a greater share of the physical security market -- which the company believes is worth an estimated $230 billion annually. Li declined to answer questions about the disbanded programs, but said in an email, "Technology cannot do everything -- and neither can people -- but the combination can be very powerful."
For example, New York City's then-Mayor Eric Adams installed a Knightscope robot on the overnight shift at the Times Square subway station, but the program was scrapped when the pilot expired in 2024. City leaders did not respond to Proof News' questions about why the robot wasn't renewed. By the end of its assignment, it was reportedly gathering dust in an empty storefront. Outside Columbus, Ohio, the city of Dublin pulled the plug on a Knightscope robot in May, ending its two-year pilot program after less than 10 months. The city enlisted the robot, dubbed DubBot, to patrol a downtown park, but city spokeswoman Robyn Gray said it "did not fully meet our operational needs," and failed to identify any criminal incidents or lead to any tickets or arrests.
[...] Seeking a new path forward in the security industry, Knightscope CEO William Santana Li said the company is forging a new model, combining its robots and AI-powered software with another key ingredient: human security guards. Knightscope announced it purchased Event Risk LLC, a national security guard firm, earlier this year. Knightscope has incurred net losses since inception in 2013, according to its most recent quarterly filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and is $273 million in debt. Knightscope hopes its pivot to incorporate people will give it a greater share of the physical security market -- which the company believes is worth an estimated $230 billion annually. Li declined to answer questions about the disbanded programs, but said in an email, "Technology cannot do everything -- and neither can people -- but the combination can be very powerful."
Wrong focus (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the problem..
failed to identify any criminal incidents or lead to any tickets or arrests
Focusing on identifying incidents and making arrests... What if the robot deterred incidents from taking place at all? Surely that would be better.
Re: (Score:2)
Might be just stupid metrics, yes. Most guards are NOT there to "identify" anything or "arrest" anybody. They are there to have somebody watching things.
Re: (Score:2)
Might be just stupid metrics, yes. Most guards are NOT there to "identify" anything or "arrest" anybody. They are there to have somebody watching things.
Identify is precisely what security guards are hired to do, the big issue with CCTV is unless you know when and where an event took place, you're looking through a mountain of footage for a needle. This is likely the same problem with robot guards, they cant tell when or where something untoward is happening.
Arrest, probably not as, in most civilised countries guards are instructed not to put themselves in danger. However the article mentions places in the US so that doesn't really apply.
The other
Re: (Score:3)
Arrest, probably not as, in most civilised countries guards are instructed not to put themselves in danger. However the article mentions places in the US so that doesn't really apply.
Where do you get your "facts" on how security guards are supposed to act in the USA? Old episodes of 1970's TV shows like Cannon or Mannix?
Security guards in the US are not rootin' tootin' sheriff enforcers, enforcing security with a loaded 45 and a desire to use it. They do not have law enforcement powers, and they are definitely not endowed or supposed to place themselves in harms way. Very few are even armed outside of military guards.
In the places I have worked, they are there to deter normal pe
Re: (Score:2)
Same in Europe. The only armed civilian guards I have ever seen are for armored transports and they get special permission for that. They are only allowed to defend themselves though.
Re: (Score:2)
I did a stint as a security guard when I was young. The job was "observe and report", but we were there to be a deterrent. We were supposed to be -visibly- present. People were less likely to mess with things if they saw a person.
These current robocops are like security cameras -nobody cares if they are there. They need an ED-209: "You have 15 seconds to comply" ...
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. The most important part of deterrence against most people is a good show and a person visibly being there is the easiest and most reliable way to do it because people all can imagine being stopped by other people. By a toaster on wheels? Not so much. Too abstract for most people.
Re:Wrong focus (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
They would have numbers for that (Score:2)
It's basically just a camera on Wheels and there's not really a lot of value to that. It's just kind of a scary dystopia thing.
Now when we start putting weapons on them yeah and that
Re: (Score:2)
I can see China, Russia, or other states allowing robots to pull the trigger on trespassers, but in the US and EU, killbots guarding the local Gnome Depot at night are not going to happen. People are starting to show they are fed up with technology, if if the backlash to ALPR cameras is bad, then wait until some company finds some 13 year olds were mowed down by automatic weapons fire from a strip mall's defense system.
Shoplifting cannot be handled at the retail level. You can only lock up so much merchan
Re: (Score:2)
Geez. (Score:2)
Even Batman's job is threatened by AI.
Bofh (Score:2)
Security bot gone wild.
https://www.theregister.com/of... [theregister.com]
Silly (Score:2)
If you want to surveillance everywhere, you can put down tons of cameras or you can use a human. When AI/robotics is good enough to reliably go through the bushes to tell some fuckers in the park to fuck off, try again.
Backwards (Score:4, Interesting)
Knightscope announced it purchased Event Risk LLC, a national security guard firm, earlier this year.
Not uncommon to hear stories like this, but the dynamics always seemed backward to me. The purchase should have been the other way around.
Knightscope is a high tech Silicon Valley company. I know nothing about them, but can infer they are VC funded, and their valuation is based on hope and "tech this, tech that, and AI everywhere", funded by the lemmings, the pied piper, and the kingdom of the emperor's new clothes.
And, they have failed to make a product that actually won in the marketplace, being dropped by early customers, and are in some serious debt. They pin their hopes on buying a company that may actually be smaller but has a service that works, is probably profitable (or, at least a balanced sheet), has been around awhile, and would likely do just fine on their own without any interference - BUT - they are small potatoes because they are not high tech chi chi, and they are not funded by SiVal VC.
So, who should by whom? Event Risk, the security people company, could rightly look into improving services and efficiency by using tech products like those made by Knightscope the security tech company - test it out, see if it fits, adopt it if promising, etc. - and if it really works, even buy up Knightscope. That makes sense from an operational and business alignment point of view.
But, it's going the other way, because of desparation, VC money, false hopes that more VC money will rescue failure. The losers are buying the winners, but it should be the other way around.
Seems like I heard this story about umpty million times in the past 30 years. I wonder what the statistics are on how those mergers and acquisitions actually pan out, and if the VC's do their diligence in pre-assessing all of this.
Re: (Score:2)
Knightscope announced it purchased Event Risk LLC, a national security guard firm, earlier this year.
Not uncommon to hear stories like this, but the dynamics always seemed backward to me. The purchase should have been the other way around.
Knightscope is a high tech Silicon Valley company. I know nothing about them, but can infer they are VC funded, and their valuation is based on hope and "tech this, tech that, and AI everywhere", funded by the lemmings, the pied piper, and the kingdom of the emperor's new clothes.
And, they have failed to make a product that actually won in the marketplace, being dropped by early customers, and are in some serious debt. They pin their hopes on buying a company that may actually be smaller but has a service that works, is probably profitable (or, at least a balanced sheet), has been around awhile, and would likely do just fine on their own without any interference - BUT - they are small potatoes because they are not high tech chi chi, and they are not funded by SiVal VC.
So, who should by whom? Event Risk, the security people company, could rightly look into improving services and efficiency by using tech products like those made by Knightscope the security tech company - test it out, see if it fits, adopt it if promising, etc. - and if it really works, even buy up Knightscope. That makes sense from an operational and business alignment point of view.
But, it's going the other way, because of desparation, VC money, false hopes that more VC money will rescue failure. The losers are buying the winners, but it should be the other way around.
Seems like I heard this story about umpty million times in the past 30 years. I wonder what the statistics are on how those mergers and acquisitions actually pan out, and if the VC's do their diligence in pre-assessing all of this.
A few options:
1.) An ArtX type situation. In 2000 ATi Technologies Acquired a much smaller company called ArtX. When the dust settled and the ink dried, most of the C suite, and many of the relevant managers of the merged antity came from ArtX, not from ATi. Meaning that the company would be steered in a new direction by the management of the smaller company. If, after the merger here, you see an inordinate ammount of EventRisk people in management positions in the newly merged company, you know what happen
Fixed Cameras (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Given that robots with cameras are a lot more expensive than fixed cameras wouldn't it make more sense to just have more fixed cameras? Moving camera only provide partial coverage so they seem just worse.
A fixed camera setup is deterministic, may have blind spots, and the cameras can be attacked without recourse (spray paint over lens, for example). but they are cheap to replace
Robot camera is non-deterministic, by definition does not have blind spots (as it is non-deterministic), by their very nature they can cry for help, and can do other things to (like cleaning) if you so desire. And while they are harder to repair or replce, is still easier and cheaper than a maimed or killed human (which we must avoid
Kung Fu Robots (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Everyone gathers to watch the securitybots fall down and violently flail around trying to right themselves.
Meanwhile, while the crowd is distracted, I pick their pockets.
Truly a golden age of law and order.
Knightscope sucks (Score:2)
Their robots are too expensive to manage and operate! Of course they'll fail. To capture a market as a new entrant you'll have to offer a minimum of 3X better value than existing players. Ideally 5x or even 10x.
They didn't need to be an expensive Dalek looking thing.
Guards have three possible purposes (Score:2)
There are three possible purposes for guards aside from alerting someone with more authority. Sometimes a guard will have 1, 2, or 3 of these duties.
A few guards actually prevent access to things.
Most guards are there to be a visible deterrent.
All guards are there to be a witness. For some, this is almost the only thing they're there for, aside from maybe calling the cops if something happens.
A robot should be able to handle the latter two of those jobs, even if it's not very good. Preventing access is a jo
So is Slashdot (Score:2)
This article is a duplicate.
Oh knightscope (Score:2)
Free stuff?! (Score:2)
Hmmmm (Score:2)
The security guards on my site will all wear a yellow sash that points out they are wearing Gurgle Glasses. Security guards are in place for insurance purposes only. Their admitted value is being witness or maybe helping give birth or CPR.