But privacy watchdogs — the human kind — warn that police are secretly rushing to buy the robots without setting safeguards against aggressive, invasive or dehumanizing uses. In Honolulu, the police department spent about $150,000 in federal pandemic relief money to buy their Spot from robotics firm Boston Dynamics for use at a government-run tent city near the airport. Honolulu officials faced a backlash when a local news organization, Honolulu Civil Beat, revealed that the Spot purchase was made with federal relief money. The expensive machine arrived with little public notice or explanation, public officials said, and was deployed to already over-policed public housing. There are roughly 500 Spot robots now in the wild.

Source: ABC News July 30, 2021 06:56 UTC