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Incident 207: Hawaii Police Deployed Robot Dog to Patrol a Homeless Encampment

Description: Honolulu Police Department spent federal pandemic relief funds on a robot dog to take body temperatures and patrol a homeless quarantine encampment which local civil rights advocates criticized as dehumanizing.

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Alleged: Boston Dynamics developed an AI system deployed by Honolulu Police Department, which harmed Honolulu homeless people.

Incident Stats

Incident ID
207
Report Count
4
Incident Date
2021-01-10
Editors
Khoa Lam
Applied Taxonomies
GMF, MIT

MIT Taxonomy Classifications

Machine-Classified
Taxonomy Details

Risk Subdomain

A further 23 subdomains create an accessible and understandable classification of hazards and harms associated with AI
 

5.1. Overreliance and unsafe use

Risk Domain

The Domain Taxonomy of AI Risks classifies risks into seven AI risk domains: (1) Discrimination & toxicity, (2) Privacy & security, (3) Misinformation, (4) Malicious actors & misuse, (5) Human-computer interaction, (6) Socioeconomic & environmental harms, and (7) AI system safety, failures & limitations.
 
  1. Human-Computer Interaction

Entity

Which, if any, entity is presented as the main cause of the risk
 

Human

Timing

The stage in the AI lifecycle at which the risk is presented as occurring
 

Post-deployment

Intent

Whether the risk is presented as occurring as an expected or unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
 

Intentional

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

+1
Honolulu Police Spent $150,000 In CARES Funds On A Robot Dog
Honolulu Police Used a Robot Dog to Patrol a Homeless EncampmentA useful tool or dehumanising? Robot police dog that scans homeless people sparks debatePolice Outsourcing Human Interaction With Homeless People to Boston Dynamics’ Robot Dog
Honolulu Police Spent $150,000 In CARES Funds On A Robot Dog

Honolulu Police Spent $150,000 In CARES Funds On A Robot Dog

civilbeat.org

Honolulu Police Used a Robot Dog to Patrol a Homeless Encampment

Honolulu Police Used a Robot Dog to Patrol a Homeless Encampment

vice.com

A useful tool or dehumanising? Robot police dog that scans homeless people sparks debate

A useful tool or dehumanising? Robot police dog that scans homeless people sparks debate

euronews.com

Police Outsourcing Human Interaction With Homeless People to Boston Dynamics’ Robot Dog

Police Outsourcing Human Interaction With Homeless People to Boston Dynamics’ Robot Dog

vice.com

Honolulu Police Spent $150,000 In CARES Funds On A Robot Dog
civilbeat.org · 2021

Flush with CARES Act cash, the Honolulu Police Department has spent millions on what one officer called “toys.”

The Honolulu Police Department used $150,045 in federal funds intended to respond to the pandemic to acquire a robot dog named S…

Honolulu Police Used a Robot Dog to Patrol a Homeless Encampment
vice.com · 2021

Local police used $150,000 in COVID relief funds to purchase Boston Dynamics' four-legged robot, Spot.

Despite widespread public outrage at police departments’ use of Boston Dynamics' Spot robot, law enforcement agencies continue to look fo…

A useful tool or dehumanising? Robot police dog that scans homeless people sparks debate
euronews.com · 2021

Homeless residents of a state-run tent city in Honolulu, Hawaii, are having their eyes scanned by a robotic police dog.

Police in the city say it's a safer way to check for symptoms of COVID-19.

But local civil rights advocates say the use …

Police Outsourcing Human Interaction With Homeless People to Boston Dynamics’ Robot Dog
vice.com · 2022

Honolulu PD’s $150,000 Boston Dynamics robot dog is doing the hard work of taking temperatures at one of Hawaii’s several outdoor homeless shelters.

Despite pushback from the community, cops in Honolulu are using a $150,000 robot dog to tak…

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.
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