 You are probably not old enough to remember the hit 1960s television series The Prisoner, in which Patrick McGoohan played a secret agent being held for interrogation in a dystopian resort on a nameless island. Whenever McGoohan’s character made it to the beach to find a small boat to row to freedom, the mysterious powers-that-be unleashed the Rover – a giant white balloon capable of blocking escapees, knocking them down, or even suffocating them. No idea, it seems, is too lurid for the Chinese Communist Party to render into reality in the service of its surveillance state. Pedestrians in China are now watching in amazement as the streets are patrolled by RG-T robots – essentially a metal ball surrounded by a tire – that subjects people to facial recognition scans, possible arrest and worse. (See it in action here.) The U.S. military toyed with a prototype, but considered it for warfare, not for civilian use. The Sun tabloid calls, without exaggeration, “all terrain, spherical robocops.” They are resistant to attack, even from a man wielding a baseball bat. The robots, produced by China’s Logon Technologies, are not passive observers. They are equipped with artificial intelligence that decides when and how to deploy net guns, tear gas sprayers, grenades, loudspeakers, and sound wave devices. The lethal potential of robots is not theoretical. In the United States, police routinely use robots and drones for surveillance to assess the danger of a situation. In one instance in 2018, a gunman in Dallas suspected of shooting five policemen and who exchanged gunfire with police was killed by a police robot. The use of the Dallas robot was deployed to protect the police and nearby citizens. Moreover, it was fully under human control. When AI is combined with new inventions as it is with the RT-G bots, however, the decision to use force, even lethal force, is up to an algorithm. A lot of bad ideas are becoming reality in China. But don’t expect them to stay there. Comments are closed.
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