Robot dogs: On police forces, defence duty and their potential risks

What are these entities? These are canine-shaped robots with AI and four-legged mobility. Charact­eri­sed as "partly-autonomous" ground vehicles, they can be used to do a variety of tasks

A few days ago, the New York Police Department (NYPD) released footage of its new “employees” — robot dogs that accompany police officers on patrol duty. Singapore is using robot dogs to patrol public spaces and maintain social distancing. And the French army is also inducting them in military exercises.

What are these entities? These are canine-shaped robots with artificial intelligence and four-legged mobility. Charact­eri­sed as “partly-autonomous” ground vehicles, they can be used to do a variety of tasks. There are now concerns that such units can be weaponised as they are being increasingly adopted by police and defence forces. 

Two specific “breeds” of robodogs, Spot from Boston Dynamics and the vision series from Ghost Robotics, are now commercially available. Both cost around $75,000, weigh about 30 kg and are about the size of medium-sized dogs. Both companies make similar claims about mobility and features, and both units can be remotely monitored and controlled.

Robotic autonomous vehicles, or semi-autonomous vehicles, are not new but these are more often aerial drones, or wheeled ground vehicles. But these robots have legs. They have technology (of different types) that allows them to negotiate any terrain a four-legged dog could — and to recover their footing if they fall down. 

They can carry loads (versions have been used as pack animals by the US Army in Afghanistan) and a variety of cameras and sensors. They have been used in factories to do repetitive tasks and the US Air Force is experimenting with perimeter patrols of air bases. They can also be used in toxic or radioactive environments that are dangerous for humans.

Aerial drones with operators have often been used in military situations, including carrying out targeted assassinations. In 2016, the Dallas (Texas) police used a robot to carry an improvised bomb into a building where a gunman was holed up. The bomb was detonated, killing the gunman.

The NYPD has used robot dogs to deliver food in hostage situations, and in reconnaissance of places where armed persons may be hiding. Singapore uses them to check that social distancing and masking norms are followed.

The French army, in its recent exercises, experimented with simulated patrols with robot dogs. Apparently, these are useful. The robots can carry loads, which would be a burden for soldiers; they can check out potential minefields; they can be sent into terrain that is hard to search, to check for possible ambushes; they can be used for bomb disposal.  

So far, it all seems more or less positive. Is it?

The UN has long called for a ban on autonomous weapons, and that’s where this could be headed. Armed aerial drones already come close to qualifying as autonomous weapons. They fly themselves and use facial recognition and image-analysis to identify targets. The US, which uses aerial drones extensively, claims the trigger (which could release a variety of weapons) is always “pulled” by a human. But even if this is true, it wouldn’t take much to program drones to just make their own firing decisions.

South Korea has considered setting up autonomous machi­n­es guns on the demilitarised zone (DMZ) with North Korea. These guns would be fed the pa­ss­word of the day, and motion-activated. Whenever such a gun picked up a moving target, it would ask for the password and could start shooting if the target (which might be an animal, or someone with an odd accent) didn’t know the password.

The Boston Dynamics contracts forbid the use of the robot dogs for offensive purposes. But this is impossible to enforce. In a demonstration, an arts collective mounted paintball guns on the dogs and sprayed targets. Apart from this, police surveillance using ground level drones with face-recognition program could be used to target citizens and violate their privacy.

It’s inevitable that such units will be inducted in larger numbers for security related tasks. But there’s obviously scope for abusing the new capabilities they possess. It’s important that police forces and defence services tell taxpayers about the plans and policies they adopt for using these units. Transpar­ency and oversight will be crucial to ensure that these units don’t end up enabling human rights abuse, or causing horrific damage even by accident.