Incident 77: Knightscope's Park Patrol Robot Ignored Bystander Pressing Emergency Button to Alert Police about Fight

Description: A Knightscope K5 autonomous "police" robot patrolling Huntington Park, California failed to respond to an onlooker who attempted to activate its emergency alert button when a nearby fight broke out.

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Alleged: Knightscope developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed Cogo Guebara and unnamed woman injured in the fight.

Incident Stats

Incident ID
77
Report Count
5
Incident Date
2019-10-04
Editors
Sean McGregor, Khoa Lam

CSETv0 Taxonomy Classifications

Taxonomy Details

Full Description

A Knightscope K5 autonomous security robot was patrolling Salt Lake Park in Huntington Park, CA in fall 2018 when a fight broke out nearby. An onlooker pressed the emergency alert button on the K5, named HP RoboCop by the town, but the robot did not respond and returned to its patrol of the park. Knightscope says that the emergency alert feature was still under development and therefore the signal was not sent to local police.

Short Description

In Fall 2018, a Knightscope K5 autonomous security robot took no action to stop a nearby fight, despite an onlooker attempting to activate its emergency alert feature.

Severity

Unclear/unknown

AI System Description

Knightscope K5 autonomous security robot uses several environmental sensors and voice commands to conduct security operations.

System Developer

Knightscope

Sector of Deployment

Administrative and support service activities

Relevant AI functions

Perception, Cognition, Action

AI Techniques

unknown

AI Applications

Image classification, image recognition, facial recognition, speech recognition, self-driving, environment sensing

Location

Huntington Park, CA

Named Entities

Knightscope, Knightscope K5, HP RoboCop, Huntington Park, Salt Lake Park, Huntington Park Police Department, Cosme Lozano

Technology Purveyor

Huntington Park Police Department, Knightscope

Beginning Date

2018-01-01

Ending Date

2018-01-01

Near Miss

Unclear/unknown

Intent

Accident

Lives Lost

No

Data Inputs

LIDAR, sonar, video camera, vibration detection, thermal anomaly detection, automatic signal detection, audio

CSETv1 Taxonomy Classifications

Taxonomy Details

Harm Distribution Basis

none

Sector of Deployment

law enforcement

nbcnews.com · 2019

HUNTINGTON PARK, Calif. — When a fight broke out recently in the parking lot of Salt Lake Park, a few miles south of downtown Los Angeles, Cogo Guebara did what seemed the most practical thing at the time: she ran over to the park’s police …

metro.co.uk · 2019

A police robot told a woman to go away after she tried to report a violent brawl breaking out nearby – then trundled off while singing a song. Cogo Guebara rushed over to the motorized police officer and pushed its emergency alert button on…

Police Robot Ignores Woman's Call for Help in an American Park
interestingengineering.com · 2019

As our world becomes more and more automated, with robotics taking over many human roles and offering assistance, we have to wonder just how useful some of these inventions truly are.

When you need the police, you still have to call 911

As …

Police robot completely ignores woman begging for help
lawenforcementtoday.com · 2019

HUNTINGTON PARK, Calif. – Police officers can’t be everywhere at once. Between budget cuts, staffing issues and an increase in violent crime across the country, cops are in huge demand.

So naturally we turn to technology to help solve the p…

California’s First Robotic Police Officer Ignored a Woman Reporting a Crime, Then 'Sang her a Song'
thesized.com · 2019

Not everybody is a fan of law enforcement. Perhaps this is what inspired the Californian city of Huntington Park to take a more modern approach to police.

A mechanical enforcement officer, dubbed HP Robocop, has been patrolling Salt Lake Pa…

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.

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