Knightscope, a startup based in Mountain View, California, has been busy designing, building, and testing the robot, known as the K5, since 2013. Seven have been built so far, and the company plans to deploy four before the end of the year at an as-yet-unnamed technology company in the area. The robots are designed to detect anomalous behavior, such as someone walking through a building at night, and report back to a remote security center.
“This takes away the monotonous and sometimes dangerous work, and leaves the strategic work to law enforcement or private security, depending on the application,†Knightscope cofounder and vice president of sales and marketing Stacy Stephens said as a K5 glided nearby.
In order to do the kind of work a human security guard would normally do, the K5 uses cameras, sensors, navigation equipment, and electric motors—all packed into its dome-shaped body with a big rechargeable battery and a computer. There are four high-definition cameras (one on each side of the robot), a license-plate recognition camera, four microphones, and a weather sensor (which looks like a DVD-player slot) for measuring barometric pressure, carbon dioxide levels, and temperature. The robots use Wi-Fi or a wireless data network to communicate with each other and with people who can remotely monitor its cameras, microphones, and other sources of data.
Arm them with lasers and they’ll be good to go.
What is the minimum hourly wage for robots? What are the health insurance requirements for robots? What is the FICA percentage for robots? How much maternity or paternity leave do robots get? What are the EEOC paperwork requirements for robots?
Usually, machinery is more costly than humans, but when humans become more costly than machines, guess which ones will get hired? Think about it.
A bad name that, K-5. Memory says it belongs to a mountain peak in the Himalayas, icy and cold and remote. We need something softer on the tongue, a friendly familiar sound that children can easily remember and speak comfortably. I suggest “Cylon.”