Amid lingering concerns about surveillance and safety, the Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to accept the donation of a nearly $280,000 dog-like robot for the police department's use.

The 8-4 vote followed more than a dozen public comments urging council members to vote against the controversial device, which would be paid for with a donation from the Los Angeles Police Foundation.
 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/city-council-votes-to-accept-donation-of-controversial-lapd-robot-dog/ar-AA1bB6OR

We’ve discussed use of robotic dogs at the border but this is happening because a dog was donated to the LAPD.  

Voted other, Winnipeg Police have one of these Boston Dynamic robotic dogs and it cost about $280K as well, I don't think it's ever been deployed. Complete waste of taxpayers money. I'm surprised Walter isn't complaining about this, if he's so worried about skynet AI, shouldn't he be worried that robotic dogs are going to take over or something equally ridiculously stupid? I mean, there's a Black Mirror episode dedicated to this. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xejjA2AFO5I

I can't help thinking of "RoboCop".

And of course all you need is a few lines of bad code somewhere for things to go wrong go wrong go wrong go wrong go wrong

I voted other because these robot dogs are programmed and as such, they need to be very very very thoroughly tested in multiple situations. 

First of all, they scare a lot of people. 

As they are programmed, they may not be perfect and there is always a chance that something awry could go wrong with the programming. 

They would have to be entirely waterproof incase the robot dog has to go into the water to retrieve someone, or chase someone up river, etc.

They're much more expensive than a normal dog and unless they use AI, the robot dog cannot be taught like a normal dog.

If the robot dog's battery charge gets low or goes dead, they won't be of any help to the police. 

They could be affected by electric shock or an EMP. Of course, electric shocks would affect a normal dog too, but not EMPs.

I think it should be under heavy scrutiny for at least 3 ~ 5 years under multiple scenarios (fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, heavy rain downpour, earthquakes, collapsing buildings/structures, around both adults, children and other pets/animals too. 

FWIW

For someone to control it maliciously, yes, not for it to act autonomously.

They uses robots to diffuse bombs. I don’t see the problem if that is all they are used for. Now, instead of using a robot, they use extended cameras to view a situation from an exterior source. Would it be autonomous or would a person in the other end viewing the scene make the decision to use act?

That is true but if they are controlled externally like a real person wouldn’t it be more like a drone?

Good points. Maybe they have use in search and rescue rather than apprehension or stopping criminals.