title: fbi releases clinton foundation investigation records
text: china airport security robot gives electroshocks  
  activist post 
  while debate surrounds the threat of autonomous killer robots the mechanized replacement of humans continues across the workforce 
  the industrial robotics industry is logging record sales worldwide and there appears to be no sign of a slowdown as you can see in the graphic below  sales surged  over a previous record year to reach almost  million units 
  there are many factors driving this growth which you can read about here but one point worth noting is that the two leading countries are the us and china with china leading the way 
  the nature of robotics is also changing as new developments in artificial intelligence are giving robots an increasing range of potential uses one key area of course is security robot security guards have already begun appearing at prisons  care facilities  and schools in various locations around the world 
  one us robot company gamma  robotics has designed several models for mass production their latest  ramsee  can be seen in the video below a true mass rollout of this fully autonomous security guard could significantly impact the  million humans that are currently employed in some form of security patrol 
  ramsee advertises the following capabilities is a physical presence that autonomously patrols without supervision provides realtime data intruders motion heat fire smoke gases  more is a humanmachine interface that creates a powerful force multiplier 
  significantly gamma  robotics has partnered with hexagon safety  infrastructure the global leader in public safety and security solutions 
  however ramsee is missing one thing weapons for that we have to travel to china where they seem to have embraced police robots full throttle 
  in late  i covered an announcement from chinas xinhua news agency where they announced the development and deployment of  weaponized antiterrorism robots that would be far more active than a mere patrol 
  the toysized robots can coordinate with each other on the battlefield said the report following their unveiling at the  world robot conference in beijing 
  the first model is known as a reconnaissance robot which scouts for poisonous gases dangerous chemicals and explosives before transmitting its findings back to baseif this initial investigation detects a simple bomb is the source of danger the second robot model  a small explosive ordnance disposal eod machine  would be sent in to diffuse it 
  but with other more complicated threats an attacker robot would start its mission armed with minorcaliber weapons recoilless rifles and grenade launchers 
  with a sighting telescope a trigger and a safe installed the attacker can hit its target from a long distance xinhua said 
  the local police force in beijing was reported to be among the buyers for the three robots  which are priced at  million yuan  for the set by manufacturers hit robot group who are based in the northern city of harbin 
  apart from antiterror operations they can also be applied in fire fighting public security forestry and agriculture the companys sales manager chen deqiang said according to xinhua 
  if we have learned anything about antiterrorism efforts authorities consider frontline deployment to be areas of public travel we were given the tsa based on such notions and have since witnessed its intrusive role in airports and soontobe at other public transportation if authorities have their way 
  china has gone to the next level with a robot tsa of sorts called anbot that is equipped with what is essentially a taserlike device that is being fittingly compared to a cattleprod 
  image credit 
  it was first introduced at a tech show earlier in the year and was speculated to have been designed for protest suppression for now its first job is to patrol chinas shenzhen airport 
  most alarming however is that it is tied to one of the most powerful supercomputers on the planet 
  the back end of this intelligent security robot is l inked to chinas tianhe supercomputer  where it has access to cloud services  anbot conducts patrols recognizes threats and has multiple cameras that use facial recognition 
  these cloud services give the robots petascale processing power  well beyond onboard processing capabilities in the robot the supercomputer connection is there to enhance the intelligent learning capabilities and humanmachine interface of these devices said the uschina economic and security review in a report released tuesday that examines chinas autonomous systems development efforts  emphasis added 
   source  
  this link to cloud services is a new trend in robot artificial intelligence that also has been referred to as the wikipedia for robots  essentially an internet cloud brain through robottorobot information sharing they can speed up their learning process  autonomously examples have included robots that can learn to cook and robots that can learn the tasks involved in caregiving however when applied to policing things become much more ethically troubling 
  people were outraged in the us for example when a robot in dallas was used to deliver a pound of c explosive to a us citizen whom the police deemed a sufficient threat worthy of immediate execution at least in that case a human made the decision but it is being viewed as a tiptoe along the path to the widespread use of killer robots much as we have seen with the use of drones discussion was once limited to overseas  egregious enough  but there has been a growing voice of those who are urging weaponized domestic police drones 
  as john vibes wrote  it might be inevitable 
  the taser corporation is planning on building a drone that is equipped with a stun gun according to a recent report by the wall street journal 
  not only will the drones be equipped with tasers but there is also talk of them being autonomous meaning that an actual human wont necessarily be needed to fly the drone 
  this is actually already being done in india  the first country to have approved the use of drones attached with nonlethal weapons and just this week british tabloid the sun  had a feature entitled vladimir putins russia is preparing an army of robots and drones to take on its enemies deputy pm dmitry rogozin admits given the available facts this title no longer seems so deliberately sensational 
  clearly we are entering a potentially dangerous convergence of expanding robotic artificial intelligence along with the political will to continue allowing robots more and more autonomy as they carry out the traditional duties of the military and police some experts argue that the precision of robotics will curb many of the abuses we have seen from our military and police but is that the trend we are actually seeing or will automated systems of violent control inevitably lead to even greater industriallevel suppression and killing 
  nicholas west writes for activistpostcom  this article may be republished in part or in full with author attribution and source link