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Utopia Talk / Politics / San Francisco missed a chance

Average Ameriacn
Member Wed Dec 13 07:46:15
The robots could have cleaned the city!

http://www...pca-mission-san-francisco.html

Security robot that deterred homeless encampments in the Mission gets rebuke from the city

Dec 8, 2017

San Francisco residents continue to rage against the machines.

While the city's board of supervisors moves toward finalizing limits on robots that roam the sidewalks to deliver food and goods, it must also find a way to handle security robots that patrol public sidewalks.

The S.F. SPCA in the Mission started using a security robot about a month ago in its parking lot and on the sidewalks around its campus, which takes up a whole city block at Florida St. and 16th St. Last week, the city ordered the SPCA to keep its robot off the sidewalks or face a penalty of up to $1,000 per day for operating in the public right-of-way without a permit.

The security robot is just the latest in a growing list of uses for robots around the city, from rental agents to food couriers. The robot surge could draw local government into more questions about its role in regulating the machines, especially if they operate in the public right-of-way.

For the SPCA, the security robot, which they've dubbed K9, was a way to try dealing with the growing number of needles, car break-ins and crime that seemed to emanate from nearby tent encampments of homeless people along the sidewalks.

“We weren’t able to use the sidewalks at all when there’s needles and tents and bikes, so from a walking standpoint I find the robot much easier to navigate than an encampment,” Jennifer Scarlett, the S.F. SPCA’s president, told the Business Times.

Once the SPCA started using the robot on the sidewalks around its campus in early November, Scarlett said, there were no more homeless encampments. There were also fewer break-ins to cars in the campus parking lot. It’s not clear that the robot was the cause of the decreases, Scarlett added, but they were correlated.

The people in the encampments showed their displeasure with the robot’s presence at least once. Within about a week of the robot starting its automated route along the sidewalks, some people setting up a camp “put a tarp over it, knocked it over and put barbecue sauce on all the sensors,” Scarlett said.

The robot upset local resident Fran Taylor, too. Last month, the robot approached Taylor while she walked her dog near the SPCA campus. Her dog started lunging and barking, she said, and Taylor yelled for the robot to stop. It finally came to a halt about 10 feet away, she said.

The encounter struck Taylor as an “unbelievable” coincidence since she had been working with pedestrian advocacy group Walk San Francisco in asking the city to limit sidewalk delivery robots. That legislation is expected to receive final approval soon but doesn’t apply to security robots like K9.

Taylor said she’s concerned about robots bumping into people on the sidewalks. She knows robots are often equipped with sensors so they don’t do that, she added, but “I don’t really trust that.”

She wrote an email to the SPCA the day of her encounter and copied several San Francisco government officials, including Mayor Ed Lee and members of the Board of Supervisors. The SPCA team responded and cited security concerns as the motivation for starting to use the robot.

On Dec. 1, the Department of Public Works sent the SPCA an email saying that the robot is operating in the public right-of-way "without a proper approval.” SPCA would have to stop using the robot on sidewalks or request a proper permit, according to the DPW email reviewed by the Business Times.

Scarlett said the SPCA stopped using the robot on the sidewalks and handed the issue over to the robot’s maker, Mountain View-based Knightscope, for further discussion with the city. Knightscope did not respond to a request for comment about the status of those talks.

The robot is a K5 unit and has a top speed of three miles per hour, according to Knightscope’s website. The units are more than five feet tall and weigh 400 pounds. They are equipped with four cameras, “each capable of reading up to 300 license plates per minute” and sending alerts when trespassers or people on a “blacklist” are in an area.

In addition to her concerns about sidewalk safety, Taylor said the robot’s route and cameras seemed “like an obvious attack on the very people in San Francisco who are already having such a hard time surviving in this expensive city.”

Having humans replace the robot’s 24/7 shift would be “cost prohibitive,” though, Scarlett said. The robot costs about $6 per hour to rent, she said. The minimum wage in San Francisco is $14 per hour.

The SPCA also employs two security guards this time of year because its staff brings back animals at night from displays in the Macy’s store holiday window.

“I can understand being scared about a new technology on the street, and we should be asking questions about it, but we should probably be a little bit angry that a nonprofit has to spend so much on security at the same time,” Scarlett said. Ultimately, the S.F. SPCA wants to see a resolution of “the complicated issues around homelessness,” she added.

But she doesn’t see the robot trend going away, either.

“In five years we will look back on this and think, ‘We used to take selfies with these because they were so new,’” Scarlett said.

Sam Adams
Member Wed Dec 13 08:34:11
Why the fuck does society not euthanize homeless druggies?

patom
Member Wed Dec 13 08:59:29
Because they could very well be your family. So far it isn't against the law to be homeless.

hood
Member Wed Dec 13 09:52:33
"Why the fuck does society not euthanize homeless druggies?"

For the same reason we don't euthanize stupid people or those that wreck havoc on the country.

Sam Adams
Member Wed Dec 13 09:53:09
A) no it couldnt be my family. We have brains.
B) if i did happen to know someone that completely fucked, i would want them to die painlessly. Its the merciful thing to do.

Hot Rod
Revved Up Wed Dec 13 10:38:41

patom - Because they could very well be your family. So far it isn't against the law to be homeless.

It becomes against the law if the homeless person, through his actions, violates the rights of others. That would include hindering the other persons right to use a public sidewalk.

jergul
large member Wed Dec 13 10:52:00
HR
What law and which jurisdictions are you referring to?

It sort of sounded like objectionist gibberish, so a clarification would be in order.

Hot Rod
Revved Up Wed Dec 13 10:59:37

How about the city statutes against littering?

jergul
large member Wed Dec 13 11:23:16
Yes, homeless people should dispose of their household waste in appropriate containers available in most cities.

Sam Adams
Member Wed Dec 13 11:29:37
How about not breaking into cars and spreading disease?

Hot Rod
Revved Up Wed Dec 13 11:36:36

That too.

jergul, your statement is 100% correct.

But, they do not do what you said.

Forwyn
Member Wed Dec 13 13:00:36
Why would SF allow businesses and charitable organizations to stop homeless druggies from camping out next to their buildings? They prefer letting free multiple felons who shoot women with stolen cop guns, as long as they're brown. Their ilk even disrupt vigils for the victim and tear down their posters.

Cthulhu
Tentacle Rapist Wed Dec 13 14:41:55

A) no it couldnt be my family. We have brains.'

Clearly not enough brains to understand the causes of addiction.

jergul
large member Wed Dec 13 14:46:29
HR
I am pretty sure that something less than 100% of people litter. This being true of any subgroup you care design.

Forwyn
What part of privat property don't you understand?

Cthulhu
Tentacle Rapist Wed Dec 13 15:13:02
@Hot Rod

I'm pretty sure what you're looking for is vagrancy. Its illegal to set up a camp on the sidewalk and live there

jergul
large member Wed Dec 13 16:04:49
"The crime of vagrancy has deep historical roots in U.S. law and legal culture. Originating in 16th-century England, vagrancy laws came to the New World with the colonists and soon proliferated throughout the United States. Although they took myriad forms, vaguely worded statutes targeting objectionable, “oue-of-place” people, rather than any particular conduct, soon became a ubiquitous tool for maintaining hierarchy and order in American society. The laws and their application changed alongside perceived threats to the social fabric—at different times targeting labor activists, radical orators, cultural and sexual nonconformists, racial and religious minorities, civil rights protesters, and the poor. By the mid-20th century, vagrancy laws served as the basis for hundreds of thousands of arrests every year. But over the course of just two decades, the crime of vagrancy, virtually unquestioned for four hundred years, unraveled. Profound social upheaval in the 1960s produced a concerted effort against the vagrancy regime, and in 1972, the United States Supreme Court invalidated the laws. Local authorities have spent the years since looking for alternatives to the many functions vagrancy laws once served.
Risa L. Goluboff

School of Law, University of Virginia
"

Hot Rod
Revved Up Wed Dec 13 20:17:51

jergul - HR
I am pretty sure that something less than 100% of people litter. This being true of any subgroup you care design.

You stated that they **should** do, not that they **do**.

jergul
large member Wed Dec 13 20:23:16
100% should. Less than 100% do.

A citation for a misdemenour is hardly earth-shaking even if it went that far.

Hot Rod
Revved Up Wed Dec 13 20:32:57

It is still a violation of the citizens right to use the public sidewalk.

When I was a teenager we did not have video games or a lot of money. One of our usual pastimes was sitting on the wall next to the projects.

Just sitting there was not enough as far as entertainment goes so we spit on the sidewalk.

After a few hours, the sidewalk got to the point where it was almost necessary to swim past us.

Looking back it was sad that people had to get in the gutter to walk past us.

jergul
large member Wed Dec 13 20:38:34
Let me get this straight. Citizens using the sidewalk is a violation of citizens' right to use the sidewalk.

mkay.

Vagrancy was still a crime when you were juvenile delinquiting.

Hot Rod
Revved Up Wed Dec 13 20:58:58

Citizens littering the sidewalk with needles and waste is a violation of citizens' right to use the sidewalk.

'FIXED'

Do you walk through such a mess near your home? Do your grandkids walk through such a mess?

Forwyn
Member Wed Dec 13 23:07:42
"What part of privat property don't you understand?"

Can you please explain to me this notion of "cramming access to private property with campsites and drug paraphernalia is more legitimate than keeping it clear for traffic"?

hood
Member Wed Dec 13 23:27:09
"When I was a teenager we did not have video games or a lot of money. One of our usual pastimes was sitting on the wall next to the projects.

Just sitting there was not enough as far as entertainment goes so we spit on the sidewalk.

After a few hours, the sidewalk got to the point where it was almost necessary to swim past us."

If you change spit to drool, you're pretty much describing hot rod as he is today. Useless fucker hasn't changed in 60 years.

jergul
large member Thu Dec 14 00:21:18
HR and Forwyn
There are lots of things I do not like that take place on property I do not own.

jergul
large member Thu Dec 14 00:27:51
One solution would be for the government to introduce toll-booths to fund social housing and thus help clear up the streets.

Libertarian win-win!

Forwyn
Member Thu Dec 14 00:46:15
i.e. No justification then, just arbitrary enforcement to nurture feefees.

jergul
large member Thu Dec 14 01:09:25
"One solution would be for the government to introduce toll-booths to fund social housing and thus help clear up the streets."

You did want cleaner streets.

Hot Rod
Revved Up Thu Dec 14 02:32:00

hood - Useless fucker hasn't changed in 60 years.

That is almost true.

Exactly 60 years ago I was stationed at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland as a proud member of The United States Army.

So I was not exactly useless.

But, considering who I am having this discussion with, I guess that is a matter of opinion.

hood
Member Thu Dec 14 08:10:42
Yeah, I don't consider military service to be anything more than a dangerous job. One might be brave for it, but that's all.

jergul
large member Thu Dec 14 08:46:54
Hood
It usually is not even a dangerous job. For dangerous; see Arctic deep sea commercial fishing.

But lets get the numbers.

Commercial fishing (including girliemen tepid water fisheries): 111/100k/year

Babykillers: 71/100k/year

Pigs: 25/100k/year

hood
Member Thu Dec 14 10:32:21
It's very clearly a reasonable argument to ignore all manner of non-lethal injury when presenting data.

Tldr: fuck off, we still don't respect your shit job.

jergul
large member Thu Dec 14 12:33:04
Hood
Why in God's name would you respect a dangerous job? Nothing is more stupid than doing dangerous shit for money (except perhaps paying money to do dangerous shit).

The only bright side is hobby's like knife fights are not very scary in comparative terms (ok jergul, someone pulls a knife on you. What do you do? I take the knife away from him).

jergul
large member Thu Dec 14 12:36:30
hobbies*

show deleted posts

Average Ameriacn Member	Wed Dec 13 07:46:15 The robots could have cleaned the city! http://www...pca-mission-san-francisco.html Security robot that deterred homeless encampments in the Mission gets rebuke from the city Dec 8, 2017 San Francisco residents continue to rage against the machines. While the city's board of supervisors moves toward finalizing limits on robots that roam the sidewalks to deliver food and goods, it must also find a way to handle security robots that patrol public sidewalks. The S.F. SPCA in the Mission started using a security robot about a month ago in its parking lot and on the sidewalks around its campus, which takes up a whole city block at Florida St. and 16th St. Last week, the city ordered the SPCA to keep its robot off the sidewalks or face a penalty of up to $1,000 per day for operating in the public right-of-way without a permit. The security robot is just the latest in a growing list of uses for robots around the city, from rental agents to food couriers. The robot surge could draw local government into more questions about its role in regulating the machines, especially if they operate in the public right-of-way. For the SPCA, the security robot, which they've dubbed K9, was a way to try dealing with the growing number of needles, car break-ins and crime that seemed to emanate from nearby tent encampments of homeless people along the sidewalks. “We weren’t able to use the sidewalks at all when there’s needles and tents and bikes, so from a walking standpoint I find the robot much easier to navigate than an encampment,” Jennifer Scarlett, the S.F. SPCA’s president, told the Business Times. Once the SPCA started using the robot on the sidewalks around its campus in early November, Scarlett said, there were no more homeless encampments. There were also fewer break-ins to cars in the campus parking lot. It’s not clear that the robot was the cause of the decreases, Scarlett added, but they were correlated. The people in the encampments showed their displeasure with the robot’s presence at least once. Within about a week of the robot starting its automated route along the sidewalks, some people setting up a camp “put a tarp over it, knocked it over and put barbecue sauce on all the sensors,” Scarlett said. The robot upset local resident Fran Taylor, too. Last month, the robot approached Taylor while she walked her dog near the SPCA campus. Her dog started lunging and barking, she said, and Taylor yelled for the robot to stop. It finally came to a halt about 10 feet away, she said. The encounter struck Taylor as an “unbelievable” coincidence since she had been working with pedestrian advocacy group Walk San Francisco in asking the city to limit sidewalk delivery robots. That legislation is expected to receive final approval soon but doesn’t apply to security robots like K9. Taylor said she’s concerned about robots bumping into people on the sidewalks. She knows robots are often equipped with sensors so they don’t do that, she added, but “I don’t really trust that.” She wrote an email to the SPCA the day of her encounter and copied several San Francisco government officials, including Mayor Ed Lee and members of the Board of Supervisors. The SPCA team responded and cited security concerns as the motivation for starting to use the robot. On Dec. 1, the Department of Public Works sent the SPCA an email saying that the robot is operating in the public right-of-way "without a proper approval.” SPCA would have to stop using the robot on sidewalks or request a proper permit, according to the DPW email reviewed by the Business Times. Scarlett said the SPCA stopped using the robot on the sidewalks and handed the issue over to the robot’s maker, Mountain View-based Knightscope, for further discussion with the city. Knightscope did not respond to a request for comment about the status of those talks. The robot is a K5 unit and has a top speed of three miles per hour, according to Knightscope’s website. The units are more than five feet tall and weigh 400 pounds. They are equipped with four cameras, “each capable of reading up to 300 license plates per minute” and sending alerts when trespassers or people on a “blacklist” are in an area. In addition to her concerns about sidewalk safety, Taylor said the robot’s route and cameras seemed “like an obvious attack on the very people in San Francisco who are already having such a hard time surviving in this expensive city.” Having humans replace the robot’s 24/7 shift would be “cost prohibitive,” though, Scarlett said. The robot costs about $6 per hour to rent, she said. The minimum wage in San Francisco is $14 per hour. The SPCA also employs two security guards this time of year because its staff brings back animals at night from displays in the Macy’s store holiday window. “I can understand being scared about a new technology on the street, and we should be asking questions about it, but we should probably be a little bit angry that a nonprofit has to spend so much on security at the same time,” Scarlett said. Ultimately, the S.F. SPCA wants to see a resolution of “the complicated issues around homelessness,” she added. But she doesn’t see the robot trend going away, either. “In five years we will look back on this and think, ‘We used to take selfies with these because they were so new,’” Scarlett said.
Sam Adams Member	Wed Dec 13 08:34:11 Why the fuck does society not euthanize homeless druggies?
patom Member	Wed Dec 13 08:59:29 Because they could very well be your family. So far it isn't against the law to be homeless.
hood Member	Wed Dec 13 09:52:33 "Why the fuck does society not euthanize homeless druggies?" For the same reason we don't euthanize stupid people or those that wreck havoc on the country.
Sam Adams Member	Wed Dec 13 09:53:09 A) no it couldnt be my family. We have brains. B) if i did happen to know someone that completely fucked, i would want them to die painlessly. Its the merciful thing to do.
Hot Rod Revved Up	Wed Dec 13 10:38:41 patom - Because they could very well be your family. So far it isn't against the law to be homeless. It becomes against the law if the homeless person, through his actions, violates the rights of others. That would include hindering the other persons right to use a public sidewalk.
jergul large member	Wed Dec 13 10:52:00 HR What law and which jurisdictions are you referring to? It sort of sounded like objectionist gibberish, so a clarification would be in order.
Hot Rod Revved Up	Wed Dec 13 10:59:37 How about the city statutes against littering?
jergul large member	Wed Dec 13 11:23:16 Yes, homeless people should dispose of their household waste in appropriate containers available in most cities.
Sam Adams Member	Wed Dec 13 11:29:37 How about not breaking into cars and spreading disease?
Hot Rod Revved Up	Wed Dec 13 11:36:36 That too. jergul, your statement is 100% correct. But, they do not do what you said.
Forwyn Member	Wed Dec 13 13:00:36 Why would SF allow businesses and charitable organizations to stop homeless druggies from camping out next to their buildings? They prefer letting free multiple felons who shoot women with stolen cop guns, as long as they're brown. Their ilk even disrupt vigils for the victim and tear down their posters.
Cthulhu Tentacle Rapist	Wed Dec 13 14:41:55 A) no it couldnt be my family. We have brains.' Clearly not enough brains to understand the causes of addiction.
jergul large member	Wed Dec 13 14:46:29 HR I am pretty sure that something less than 100% of people litter. This being true of any subgroup you care design. Forwyn What part of privat property don't you understand?
Cthulhu Tentacle Rapist	Wed Dec 13 15:13:02 @Hot Rod I'm pretty sure what you're looking for is vagrancy. Its illegal to set up a camp on the sidewalk and live there
jergul large member	Wed Dec 13 16:04:49 "The crime of vagrancy has deep historical roots in U.S. law and legal culture. Originating in 16th-century England, vagrancy laws came to the New World with the colonists and soon proliferated throughout the United States. Although they took myriad forms, vaguely worded statutes targeting objectionable, “oue-of-place” people, rather than any particular conduct, soon became a ubiquitous tool for maintaining hierarchy and order in American society. The laws and their application changed alongside perceived threats to the social fabric—at different times targeting labor activists, radical orators, cultural and sexual nonconformists, racial and religious minorities, civil rights protesters, and the poor. By the mid-20th century, vagrancy laws served as the basis for hundreds of thousands of arrests every year. But over the course of just two decades, the crime of vagrancy, virtually unquestioned for four hundred years, unraveled. Profound social upheaval in the 1960s produced a concerted effort against the vagrancy regime, and in 1972, the United States Supreme Court invalidated the laws. Local authorities have spent the years since looking for alternatives to the many functions vagrancy laws once served. Risa L. Goluboff School of Law, University of Virginia "
Hot Rod Revved Up	Wed Dec 13 20:17:51 jergul - HR I am pretty sure that something less than 100% of people litter. This being true of any subgroup you care design. You stated that they should do, not that they do.
jergul large member	Wed Dec 13 20:23:16 100% should. Less than 100% do. A citation for a misdemenour is hardly earth-shaking even if it went that far.
Hot Rod Revved Up	Wed Dec 13 20:32:57 It is still a violation of the citizens right to use the public sidewalk. When I was a teenager we did not have video games or a lot of money. One of our usual pastimes was sitting on the wall next to the projects. Just sitting there was not enough as far as entertainment goes so we spit on the sidewalk. After a few hours, the sidewalk got to the point where it was almost necessary to swim past us. Looking back it was sad that people had to get in the gutter to walk past us.
jergul large member	Wed Dec 13 20:38:34 Let me get this straight. Citizens using the sidewalk is a violation of citizens' right to use the sidewalk. mkay. Vagrancy was still a crime when you were juvenile delinquiting.
Hot Rod Revved Up	Wed Dec 13 20:58:58 Citizens littering the sidewalk with needles and waste is a violation of citizens' right to use the sidewalk. 'FIXED' Do you walk through such a mess near your home? Do your grandkids walk through such a mess?
Forwyn Member	Wed Dec 13 23:07:42 "What part of privat property don't you understand?" Can you please explain to me this notion of "cramming access to private property with campsites and drug paraphernalia is more legitimate than keeping it clear for traffic"?
hood Member	Wed Dec 13 23:27:09 "When I was a teenager we did not have video games or a lot of money. One of our usual pastimes was sitting on the wall next to the projects. Just sitting there was not enough as far as entertainment goes so we spit on the sidewalk. After a few hours, the sidewalk got to the point where it was almost necessary to swim past us." If you change spit to drool, you're pretty much describing hot rod as he is today. Useless fucker hasn't changed in 60 years.
jergul large member	Thu Dec 14 00:21:18 HR and Forwyn There are lots of things I do not like that take place on property I do not own.
jergul large member	Thu Dec 14 00:27:51 One solution would be for the government to introduce toll-booths to fund social housing and thus help clear up the streets. Libertarian win-win!
Forwyn Member	Thu Dec 14 00:46:15 i.e. No justification then, just arbitrary enforcement to nurture feefees.
jergul large member	Thu Dec 14 01:09:25 "One solution would be for the government to introduce toll-booths to fund social housing and thus help clear up the streets." You did want cleaner streets.
Hot Rod Revved Up	Thu Dec 14 02:32:00 hood - Useless fucker hasn't changed in 60 years. That is almost true. Exactly 60 years ago I was stationed at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland as a proud member of The United States Army. So I was not exactly useless. But, considering who I am having this discussion with, I guess that is a matter of opinion.
hood Member	Thu Dec 14 08:10:42 Yeah, I don't consider military service to be anything more than a dangerous job. One might be brave for it, but that's all.
jergul large member	Thu Dec 14 08:46:54 Hood It usually is not even a dangerous job. For dangerous; see Arctic deep sea commercial fishing. But lets get the numbers. Commercial fishing (including girliemen tepid water fisheries): 111/100k/year Babykillers: 71/100k/year Pigs: 25/100k/year
hood Member	Thu Dec 14 10:32:21 It's very clearly a reasonable argument to ignore all manner of non-lethal injury when presenting data. Tldr: fuck off, we still don't respect your shit job.
jergul large member	Thu Dec 14 12:33:04 Hood Why in God's name would you respect a dangerous job? Nothing is more stupid than doing dangerous shit for money (except perhaps paying money to do dangerous shit). The only bright side is hobby's like knife fights are not very scary in comparative terms (ok jergul, someone pulls a knife on you. What do you do? I take the knife away from him).
jergul large member	Thu Dec 14 12:36:30 hobbies*
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