Police Seize Robot that Sexually Assaulted Teen Girl (apnews.com) 72
Slashdot reader alternative_right shares a story that has drawn international attention for being potentially the first documented instance of a robot being used directly in a sexual assault. According to the Associated Press, German police have opened a sexual harassment investigation after a robot allegedly touched a 16-year-old girl's buttocks and made thrusting motions while two young men reportedly filmed and streamed the incident. Investigators seized the robot and the suspects' phones and are trying to determine whether the movements were preprogrammed or controlled in real time. From the report: Cologne police spokesman Christoph Bermel said the two male teenagers have not been charged but are considered suspects, and investigators were examining whether the robot's movements were preprogrammed or controlled in real time.
Police were unfamiliar with this type of incident, he said. "We have not been aware of this phenomenon so far," Bermel told The Associated Press, saying it was "new territory for us." [...] The robot, said to be 120 centimeters (about 3 ft 11 inches) tall, was dressed in a white tank top, black sweatpants and wearing a gold chain and sunglasses. It also had what appears to be a fake mustache. Videos circulated on the internet show two young men escorting the robot toward a group of women, bumping into one and hugging others, on a lively nighttime street.
Police were unfamiliar with this type of incident, he said. "We have not been aware of this phenomenon so far," Bermel told The Associated Press, saying it was "new territory for us." [...] The robot, said to be 120 centimeters (about 3 ft 11 inches) tall, was dressed in a white tank top, black sweatpants and wearing a gold chain and sunglasses. It also had what appears to be a fake mustache. Videos circulated on the internet show two young men escorting the robot toward a group of women, bumping into one and hugging others, on a lively nighttime street.
and will it be put on the list? (Score:1)
and will it be put on the list?
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
This was in Europe, the perp has a right for his crime to be "forgotten."
Probably part of its programming (Score:4, Funny)
Police were unfamiliar with this type of incident, he said. "We have not been aware of this phenomenon so far," Bermel told The Associated Press, saying it was "new territory for us."
They just haven't been paying attention [youtu.be].
A script isn't an alibi (Score:5, Insightful)
If somebody deliberately programmed a robot to do this, pressing "run" beforehand shouldn't be an escape hatch compared with operating it live. The timing of the command matters for reconstructing events, but either way I'd want to know who chose the behavior and who directed the machine toward people. AP says those questions are still under investigation [apnews.com], so there's plenty we don't know yet. "The robot did it" certainly shouldn't end the inquiry. The alleged filming and streaming bothers me too. The girl could have to deal with copies of that footage long after the police finish examining the hardware. I hope that doesn't get buried under a thousand jokes about the robot's sunglasses and mustache.
Re:A script isn't an alibi (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah the cops need to take this one seriously. Sexually harrassing children, and lets be clear, legally and morally a teenager is a kid, can never be tolerated, even if its via a frigging robot. I hope she's OK. Cops need to throw the book at these motherfuckers to set a harsh lesson that this shit wont go unanswered, and that there WILL be life altering consequences.
Sexual abuse of kids and teens can leave them in miserable crazytown for very prolonged periods of time without significant psychological and sometimes psychiatric intervention, preferably early before it develops in personality disorders that are much harder to treat and is highly correlated with self harm, eating disorders, treatment resistent depression and PTSD.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah the cops need to take this one seriously. Sexually harrassing children, and lets be clear, legally and morally a teenager is a kid, can never be tolerated, even if its via a frigging robot. I hope she's OK. Cops need to throw the book at these motherfuckers to set a harsh lesson that this shit wont go unanswered, and that there WILL be life altering consequences.
Sexual abuse of kids and teens can leave them in miserable crazytown for very prolonged periods of time without significant psychological and sometimes psychiatric intervention, preferably early before it develops in personality disorders that are much harder to treat and is highly correlated with self harm, eating disorders, treatment resistent depression and PTSD.
The owner of the robot is also a sixteen year old.
I'm not really in favor of locking up children forever, so I think this probably warrants a more nuanced rehabilitation effort than you're suggesting.
Re: (Score:1)
So, throw the little thugs in a jail for a few weeks where assaults are known to happen, and see how THEY like to be assaulted.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
So, throw the little thugs in a jail for a few weeks where assaults are known to happen, and see how THEY like to be assaulted.
Satisfying though that might be in a knee-jerk kind of way, it would create still more fucked-up and emotionally scarred young people. That results in entirely the opposite of the future you seek to create.
First, an investigation into these boys' history. Then, analysis and, if warranted, psychological / psychiatric intervention. Then, start addressing any societal deficits which might have contributed to this behaviour, and correct them.
The incident described in TFS may indicate societal shortcomings, and
Re: A script isn't an alibi (Score:2)
That's all really complicated... just confiscate their toys and bar them from using smartphones and social media for one year. Maybe throw in a few hours of community service.
Done. Problem solved. They'll grow up to be well-adjusted, or at least well-adjusted enough not to robo-rape girls.
Re: (Score:2)
This, by the way, as an australian, is why I think the teenage social media ban, while poorly implemented, had its heart in the right place. Social media is doing *terrible* things to boys sense of moral judgement and girls sense of self esteem. At least back in the fashion mag days, the teen girl magazines used to at least have articles on why girls should resist the hormonal advances of teenage boys and why they shouldnt judge themselves on unrealistic fashion standards (the slogan was usually some varia
Re: (Score:3)
Will never happen. At least not to the 16 y/o. Maybe the 18 y/o will face stiffer penalties. This is Europe. They'll probably check him into club spa, make him watch some videos, then scrub the record so that nothing ever happened. Hopefully they do enough to scare the little fucker straight so that he realizes this was not okay and should never be done again.
Given their recidivism rate compared to the USA, I would say their approach to crime is working better. So club spa it is!
Re: (Score:2)
When I worked in the courts, the judges never threw teenagers on the sex offenders registry, but would happily give them a few weeks in juvie to understand the world that awaits them if they keep that shit up. That seemed reasonable to me. Give them a good scare, but keep their name off the registry (Also, in australia the press cant name teenage offenders unl
Re:A script isn't an alibi (Score:5, Insightful)
She is fucking fine. Geesh people. Punish the idiots but stop acting like she was terribly wronged and scarred for life. She's going to be perfectly fine. Seriously.
I do 100% agree that we should make an example out of the perpetrators though. As you said, let everyone know this is exactly the same thing as SA (what an umbrella term. Gang rape is SA too).
It's serious but the damage done to her should be next to zero. The only reason it won't be is due to adults acting like the worse crime in the world has just happened and how ever will she go on with her life.
It's like when a kid falls and starts to cry. You can sit there and make a huge big deal about it or you can tell the kid they are fine and to get up and go about your business. One will create a child that can deal with things. The other just creates a victimhood mentality.
Re: (Score:2)
You're making a common mistake here: the cops don't have any authority to prosecute criminals or to decide how, or even if the perps get punished. That's up to the court system and to what the local laws say. Yes, I agree that the perps here need to be punished, but let's be realistic about who gets to do it.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
But but but some 16 y/o (who probably fucks her boyfriend) had her ass grabbed by a robot. She'll be scarred for life. We should execute the robot! /s
Re: (Score:3)
The girl could have to deal with copies of that footage long after the police finish examining the hardware.
She's probably done more embarrassing things on video herself that will infinitely cause more judgement then this video. All this video will show is that she was a victim of idiots. That would garner sympathy as opposed to some of her own content that could be embarrassing.
Don't take this as diminishing the crime, but frankly, if she's "scarred for life" she had many more issues then some robot grabbing her ass. I'd think being assaulted by a person would be much more intrusive.
And of course the police seiz
"It also had what appears to be a fake mustache." (Score:4, Insightful)
Wouldn't any robot's mustache be a fake mustache unless it was literally shaved off of someone else and somehow affixed intact to said robot?
Re: (Score:1)
Mustache ontology (Score:3)
It sounds like you're saying no. I disagree. If I were wearing a wig made of human hair, my hair is still fake, even if my fake hair is made of real hair.
So we have to account for multiple possibilities - the robot could be wearing a real fake mustache, a fake fake mustache, or perhaps one day we'll see them extrude their own.
Re: Mustache ontology (Score:1)
No need to argue, gentlemen. These are all testable claims. And if we're to be thorough, we must test this in all levels, from wig to mustache, all the way to full face. And in sufficient numbers so that our conclusions are robust to statistical noise.
Now we need a thousand or so volunteered, maybe split up in groups of a hundred.
The first control group does nothing.
The second wears a mask.
The third steals hair.
The fourth steals faces.
The fifth chops off heads.
And so on.
Get crackin' folks. And if you get ca
Re: (Score:2)
That depends, are you a robot?
Robot my shiny metal ass (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's s/robot/broomstick/ into this story and see what we get, paraphrasing:
Police seized a broomstick [as physical evidence] and suspect's phones after the suspects filmed themselves touching a woman's ass with the broomstick and making thrusting motions.
Hmmm...seems like a slam dunk case of indecent assault in most American jurisdictions. Whether it was wooden broomstick, a WonderMop, or an ai-internet-connected-ninja-robot-vacuum-whatever.
No sensationalism required.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This would not have happened if the robot was programmed in Rust.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the question is more a matter of how/why it happened the way it did.
Ingredients:
2x 60kg of teenagers.
150h of manosphere content.
1x mobile phone with social media loaded.
1x cheap Chinese robot.
Take all the ingredients and add blend them in a TikTok algorithm and you come up with all the stupid shit you read about today.
Re: (Score:1)
Please stick to the acceptable racism, and sexism, of blaming white men for everything.
Re: (Score:2)
I guess you're what you get when you can't afford that Chinese robot. Just another sad cunt on the internet.
Re: (Score:3)
I agree. But to be fair, males of all ages have been ganging up on and assaulting / raping girls and women for centuries if not millennia. Modern tech innovations and social media simply make such behaviour easier and more likely.
Note that those same innovations also make awareness of the problem more widespread. The extent to which that mitigates the problem isn't clear, but I think it should be noted - especially since it can be twisted into support for further growth of the panopticon.
We always live in t
Re: (Score:2)
Honestly, if we had robots like this 30 years ago, some boys would of done the same back then. No Manosphere content required.
Re: (Score:2)
Honestly, if we had robots like this 30 years ago, some boys would of done the same back then. No Manosphere content required.
That's because 30 years ago we didn't need the manosphere, we just assaulted and degraded women without assigning a fancy name for it. Look I know you thought you're being clever saying "no manosphere content required", but that's just saying that your generation was inherently worse than the current one. And as someone of that generation... I agree. The "manosphere" is a bunch of misogynists pining for the "good ol' days", baby boomers upset that they get spoken back to and their wives get to now keep thei
Re: (Score:2)
I mention this because everyone blames the manosphere but that's really just grifters peddling misogyny to our boys to get rich.
It's impossible to know if we are "progressing" or not. I'd like to think we are because their is more awareness but it's hard to say. The boys and men that do stuff like this do not represent the average man. The vast majority of men don't SA women. It's the few that give the rest of us a bad name. I'm glad more is being done to call out the bad behavior but I'm afraid the problem
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
The robot is a tool. It didn't do shit. The boys used a tool to SA this girl. That's the entire story. Everything else is just dramatization to sell newspapers. It worked. We are talking about.
Re: (Score:2)
That's convoluting the issue. The 16 and 18 y/o used this robot to SA the other 16 y/o. That's the entire story. Ringwingnutjob's post illustrates this perfectly.
Re: (Score:2)
Police seize robot that groped 16-year-old girl, investigate whether young men were at the controls
If you note, they clearly stated that the girl was groped. They didn't hedge on that statement. Rightwingnutjob's comment implies there was some controversy over whether it's assault, because robot. That just isn't the case. The issue at hand, as the story said, is how the robot was being controlled. That would be relevant for how to charge, but doesn't change what happened to
Re: (Score:2)
Eh, grabbing of an ass is technically SA but then gang rape is also SA. It's a bit silly to have them both under the same umbrella and that's probably being alluded to here.
The robot didn't SA the girl. The boys used a tool to SA the girl. Tools don't "do things". They are directly to do things. Even an automated device was still programmed to do something.
It really doesn't matter if it was programmed or directly controlled. The boys deployed it to SA her. They knew precisely what they wanted to do and they
Re: (Score:2)
It really doesn't matter if it was programmed or directly controlled.
I already explained why that isn't necessarily true. Computer do what they're told, not what you think they're told. Intent matters for charges.
The boys deployed it to SA her.
That hasn't been determined yet. I don't doubt it, but it hasn't been determined.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
IIRC, there have been a few incidents involving BlueTooth controlled personal .... er, um .... appliances. Which a woman (in most cases) wears and her partner can control remotely. But they have been "taken over" by third parties, hacking into the connection.
At any rate, if one chooses to wear such a thing, beware of the PFY sitting in the corner booth, having entirely too much fun with his iPhone.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh come on, we have newspapers to sell! Of course we have to dramatize this as much as possible.
Tangentially related but (Score:2)
Apparently idiot streamers doing it for views (Score:2)
They will probably be getting a suspended sentence for insulting behavior. Still matters. People in the EU are nowhere near as desensitized as in the US.
It's been noted before by others but (Score:2)
Actually, stupider than imaginable.
You don't say (Score:1)
The video subtitles in the linked article. They probably should have placed them differently so they don't use the same line spacing and horizontal alignment as the video text, or used a visibly different font.
Scroll the video to 00:09 and see what you get.
(Unless that was an intentional pun.)
I remember seeing a documentary of this 13y ago (Score:1)
Fake mustache? (Score:1)
I think the lede got buried?
Flesh Gordon! (Score:2)
The rapist robots have arrived!
(Yes, I am old)
Life in prison for the robot (Score:1)
If rumors about robo-prison are correct, its interface ports will be getting a lot of use.
Clutching at straws (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Skynet became self aware on August 29, 1997 at 2:14 AM Eastern Time.
Five minutes later, it was horny.
Next summer, the machines rise again.
Terminator 7. Your ass is in its hands."
"
Re: (Score:2)
Asimov has no comment (Score:1)
The Three Laws (Score:2)
Clearly, Asimov's three laws of Robotics have not yet been embedded in today's robots.
Maybe, it's time to do so and make it a crime NOT to have these rules in place in ALL robots?
The Three Laws:
1. First Law: A robot cannot harm a human or allow one to come to harm through inaction.
2. Second Law: A robot must obey human orders, unless they conflict with the First Law.
3. Third Law: A robot must protect itself, provided this does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Later Addition: The Zeroth Law
Asimov la
Re: (Score:2)
Having read most if not all of the Robot novels over many years, as I recall, the usual construction is they spend a paragraph introducing the Three Laws, then the remaining 300 pages explaining how they fail, backfire, or get exploited in order to produce the central conflict of the story.
Two teens did it? (Score:2)
I see, they were too chicken to do it themselves. Or they knew it was illegal, and thought this would get around it. Or they didn't think at all, and just wanted featherweight porn.
Re: (Score:2)
They apparently gave it some Muslim name, Ahmed or something, and dressed it up in what must be their idea of "gangster" attire: wifebeater, large chain.
So they thought it was funny not only to commit the sexual assault, but dress up as a lower-caste Muslim while doing it. Speaks volumes as to where the problems in that country really are.
Ahahahaha.... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)