All Dogs May Go to Heaven, but Robotic Spy Dogs Can Go Str8 to Hell

Surveillance and the City

English - March 03, 2021 22:14 - 46 minutes - 42.4 MB
Technology Government spying policing big brother robots surveillance killer robots nypd new york city futurism Homepage Download Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed

Previous Episode: Judas works for COINTELPRO: How the FBI infiltrated the Black Panthers

Next Episode: “Gangs” of New York Police Department Data

This week on Surveillance And The City, hosts Albert Fox Cahn, Rashida Richardson, and Liz O'Sullivan discuss NYPD's use of a robotic dog in Brooklyn and the Bronx. Robotics design company, Boston Dynamics, began selling "Spot" back in June mainly to utility, energy, and construction companies, as well as healthcare workers, to reach spaces deemed too dangerous for humans. What are the implications of the robotic dog's purchase and (mis)use by NYPD? What does this mean in terms of the surveillance of Black and Brown New Yorkers? We then discuss recent predictive policing tech rebranding attempts by "Geolitica" (FKA PredPol) and other companies, as well as the release of a new report by the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence calling for greater use of AI by the Department of Defense.

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Suggested reading and listening in this episode:

Ernest Cline's Ready Player Two

"Dirty Data, Bad Predictions," by Rashida Richardson, Jason M. Schultz, and Kate Crawford

Help, by Duval Timothy

Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed