‘It scared them off’, Kansas City shoppers report less crime thanks to security robot patrolling strip mall
‘It scared them off’, Kansas City shoppers report less crime thanks to security robot patrolling strip mall
A sight previously thought to be science fiction is very real at a southeast Kansas City shopping center. Instead of a police officer, a security robot has been patrolling sidewalks and shoppers are taking notice.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - A sight previously thought to be science fiction is very real at a southeast Kansas City shopping center. Instead of a police officer, a security robot has been patrolling sidewalks and shoppers are taking notice.
Since Marshall the robot has been on the job, shoppers say the experiences have completely changed when they come to these stores. The robot can spend 23 hours a day monitoring the parking lot from all angles which gives people a new sense of protection and ease they don’t always have when out.
Marshall took over security at Brywood Centre in April. Before that, Karen White noticed a lot of trouble outside the shopping center.
“Sometimes it’d be concerning for your car like someone could take it or something,” White said.
Knowing now that Marshall is always watching, the risk of crime does not worry her or others as much.
“It made it very better, like you can’t be in the parking lot without seeing the robot,” White continued. “So, I think it scared them off.”
They feel like there is less crime, because they have bought into security theater.
Ironically security theater can have a a placebo effect on crime rates as well. It turns out that the likelihood that someone commits a crime is strongly correlated to the chance they believe they will get caught, not the actual chance of getting caught. That’s why fake security cameras are so effective.
It make sense, when you make a decision you make it based on the data you have not the truth. So security theaters are effective as long as people who are thinking about commiting a crime think it is working. And they care about getting caught.
This only applies to rational actors. The problem is most criminals are not rational nor thinking of consequences.
Case in point, criminals know convenience stores have cameras but still openly rob and steal from them.
* sees robot. looks around. *
Average idiot: Huh. No crime in sight. Guess it's working.
Bro this is an advert paid by the robot vendor... hence why we are going based on "feelz"
People still act like a fake news article is good faith behavior when it is just low quality engagement slop to drive somebody's sales lol
Report to mods? That would work, until the next time, and the time after that, and the time after that... Damn fake news is gonna get us all killed (literally, as in climate change), but at least then after everyone dies perhaps we'll learn something from the ordeal. Wait... I might have detected a small problem with this plan (to do nothing at all, and just let it happen).
I'm pretty sure that simply putting a picture of eyes in the scene reduces theft. People are emotional creatures , and if they feel like they're being watched by someone who doesn't approve of stealing, they're more likely to refrain.
“Fifty thousand years ago there were these three guys spread out across the plain and they each heard something rustling in the grass. The first one thought it was a tiger, and he ran like hell, and it was a tiger but the guy got away. The second one thought the rustling was a tiger and he ran like hell, but it was only the wind and his friends all laughed at him for being such a chickenshit. But the third guy thought it was only the wind, so he shrugged it off and the tiger had him for dinner. And the same thing happened a million times across ten thousand generations - and after a while everyone was seeing tigers in the grass even when there weren`t any tigers, because even chickenshits have more kids than corpses do. And from those humble beginnings we learn to see faces in the clouds and portents in the stars, to see agency in randomness, because natural selection favours the paranoid. Even here in the 21st century we can make people more honest just by scribbling a pair of eyes on the wall with a Sharpie. Even now we are wired to believe that unseen things are watching us.”
― Peter Watts, Echopraxia
Yeah, if you believe the center owner the robot was apparently purchased because of unreliable security staff that were also providing eyes on the scene.
Are you suggesting that the same amount of crime is happening but they're deciding not to report it because there's a robot there? That's the measure they're touting, the reduction in crime reports.
Realistically, with the robot having been around now almost six months, I'm more willing to consider that the locals have noticed a difference in their experience going shopping. That's more than enough time to notice the kind of changes the locals appear to have experienced since they stopped relying on the police.
Last time, it didn't go so well for the robot:
https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2017/7/17/15986042/dc-security-robot-k5-falls-into-water
RESUSCITATE! RESUSCITATE!
“He has a license plate reader, he has facial recognition, he can read IP addresses from your cell phone or watch,” Amanda Bellemere, owner of Brywood Shopping Centre, explained. “He knows who you are basically.”
Shoplifter: fuck you police toaster!
Police toaster: you jerk off to incest hentai.
he can read IP addresses from your cell phone or watch
(X) Doubt
They mean the Bluetooth MAC address. It'll capture your phone's and can tell who the manufacturer is but the rest of the address is randomized. That said, lots of watches/earbuds/assorted smart Bluetooth things aren't randomized because manufacturers are lazy.
Marshall...?
WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL IT MALL-E?!
WHY?!
Closer to this.
Marshall conquer and destroy! Exterminate!
Does kind of look like one, doesn't it?
This is not war this is pest control
Scrolled too far to find this
"Dead or alive, you're coming with me."
Show your receipt you have 10 seconds to comply
"very better"? Anyway...
It won't last. Right now it's new, but ultimately it will become an actual initiation ritual to knock it down, or perhaps a harder version to steal something out from under its nose. It doesn't know who you are if you wear a mask (or stay out of its line or sight) and don't carry something broadcasting your IP.
This looks like just security theater.
Meanwhile, aren't cameras cheap? If let's say hundreds of those were sprinkled around, maybe behind an opaque substance so you could also put up 10-100x more of them but 9/10ths being fake, and you swap them around occasionally, that might not be perfect either but could work better than a robot offering a nice, easy, fun target to play with, just like in video games. (Nobody ever enjoys video games these days though, do they?)
Be hilarious to put the thing up somewhere it can't get down from.
It'll happen. Oh uh, I assume, I mean, yeah, totally that's what I mean... :-P
EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!
TBH, I trust a security robot way, way more than I trust the KCPD at this point.
Our police are state-controlled and don't seem to give a damn about locals, and they've shown themselves to be completely inept to stem the stream of burglaries and theft that's occurred in the city over the past year. My own car got ripped off less than a year ago, forcing me to have to replace a window, but that's small potatoes compared to what many others are experiencing.
Police don't prevent crime - their job is the grab people who commit crime.
Prevention is a much more complex issue (cultural).
Even as kids we all did shit our parents told us not to, and we just tried to not get caught.
I've made similar points in the past in discussions about robot soldiers going to war. There's an upside to these things that people insist on overlooking; they follow their programming. If you program a robot soldier to never shoot at an ambulance, then it will never shoot at an ambulance even if it's having a really bad day. Same here, if the security robot has been programmed never to leave the public sidewalk then it'll never leave the public sidewalk.
It's always possible for these sorts of things to be programed to do the wrong things, of course. But at least now we have the ability to audit that sort of thing.
I live in Kansas City. Somebody is going to do a drive by on that thing.
So do I, and yes, that could happen.
However, according to the article, it's been around six months now and is having a positive effect.
Intentionally or it will get caught up in one unintentionally?
Either way: "yes". :-(
Same. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet
They've seen the YouTube videos of Robocop and didn't want to get shot in their dicks.
The robot can spend 23 hours a day monitoring the parking lot from all angles
Do they get a mandated one-hour break or something?
Thank you for your cooperation.
The headline makes it sound like people are scared to report crimes because they don’t want to talk to RoboMallCop.
“Please wait for a human agent to speak with you”
Hold music plays
“You are number 2 in the queue”
Hold music continues playing
“To report an active crime call the police”
……
Remember the movie "Chopping Mall" ?
It's so fun to watch now. I stumbled across it on prime video or something and loved it.
Fuck that shit. Bring a jammer and disable it.
I'm waiting for someone to knock it over with their car and shoot it, that's the American way after all