The Honolulu Police Department spent $150,045 in CARES Act funding to buy Spot the robot dog from Boston Dynamics, the world’s sickest dogbot famed for backflips, games of fetch, and also hanging out with law enforcement. As the Honolulu City Beat reported last week, some feel that the expense was a bit excessive. “Toys, toys, toys,” one anonymous officer told the paper. “Everything we could buy, we would buy.” Two department officials can be seen defending the purchase in a video of a Honolulu City Council meeting in January. In a presentation, Major Mike Lambert and Acting Lieutenant Joseph O’Neal explained that Spot is intended for the POST program, “Provisional Outdoor Screening and Triage facility,” an encampment of tents to shelter people experiencing homelessness who are unable to quarantine in existing facilities. As the Star Advertiser has reported, thousands of people are living on the streets in Honolulu.

https://gizmodo.com/honolulu-police-department-used-150-000-in-cares-funds-1847092760?fbclid=IwAR32NTF0F3FK3j0b_FbseZeKdjPpfUiHJB3s8ytg7NdPe-yJgEn0PITEkXI

  • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Casually controlling spot the robot dog from my smartphone on the shitter back at the precinct while I use it to spray random homeless people with bear mace for youtube views.

  • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
    ·
    3 years ago

    an encampment of tents to shelter people experiencing homelessness who are unable to quarantine in existing facilities

    :soviet-hmm:

  • crime [she/her, any]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I wonder how far $150k would go towards housing the unhoused people the robot dog is patrolling

  • Leon_Grotsky [comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Soulfully dancing in rhythm

    is a robot, an object famously devoid of a soul

    Ah yes, what an excellent specimen of a person who understands things.

    Give me a call when everyone's ready for the Butlerian Jihad.

  • The_Walkening [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    “Toys, toys, toys,” one anonymous officer told the paper. “Everything we could buy, we would buy.”

    This is the most ominous thing you can hear from law enforcement when it comes to their budgets.

  • Koa_lala [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    I'm pretty sure they don't use that one but a spot dog type robot. The human like one is a prototype iirc.

  • D61 [any]
    ·
    3 years ago

    ANd this is why I watched Black Mirror's Metal Head on reapeat.

  • Coca_Cola_but_Commie [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    When I watched the film Elysium in 2013, I didn't like it. Sure, it's heart was in the right place, but I thought the central metaphor, the rich using robot armies to maintain a disposable slave state while they live in luxury, was extremely heavy handed and unrealistic.

  • NeverGoOutside [any]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    How else do you expect to enforce colonialism, sweaty? 👌

    Only by shooting Micronesian teenagers in the head from behind? That’s just not enough. They also have to excuse the indefensible murder of black men. Fucking gang member HPD scumbags. Thinking they are the punisher, but too STUPID to realize that Punisher hates cops. Pathetic morons. OrChickenshits too scared to call out the gang culture of their co-workers. LOSERS. PIGS. COWARDS.