Parents Upset After Their Boy Was 'Knocked Down and Run Over' By A Security Robot (abc7news.com) 255
An anonymous reader writes from a report via KGO-TV: PSA: Beware of dangerous security robots at the Stanford Shopping Center! After a young boy was "knocked down and run over" by one of the Stanford Shopping Center security robots, the boy's parents want to help prevent others from getting hurt. KGO-TV reports: "They said the machine is dangerous and fear another child will get hurt. Stanford Shopping Center's security robot stands 5' tall and weighs 300 pounds. It amuses shoppers of all ages, but last Thursday, 16-month-old Harwin Cheng had a frightening collision with the robot. 'The robot hit my son's head and he fell down facing down on the floor and the robot did not stop and it kept moving forward,' Harwin's mom Tiffany Teng said. Harwin's parents say the robot ran over his right foot, causing it to swell, but luckily the child didn't suffer any broken bones. Harwin also got a scrape on his leg from the incident." Teng said, "He was crying like crazy and he never cries. He seldom cries." They are concerned as to why the robot didn't detect Harwin. "Garage doors nowadays, we're just in a day in age where everything has some sort of a sensor," shopper Ashle Gerrard said. "Maybe they have to work out the sensors more. Maybe it stopped detecting or it could be buggy or something," shopper Ankur Sharma said. The parents said a security guard told them another child was hurt from the same robot just days before. They're hoping their story will help other parents be more careful the next time they're at the Stanford Shopping Center. The robots are designed by Knightscope and come equipped with self-navigation, infra-red cameras and microphones that can detect breaking glass to support security services.
Obvious joke... (Score:4, Funny)
I, for one, welcome our new robotic overlords.
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Also the robot clearly violated the first law of robotics and should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
Re:Obvious joke... (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, wasn't it a robot overchild.
Why (Score:2, Interesting)
Why does a glass breaking sensor need to move? Why does it need to be 300 lbs.
Such sensors are standard on home alarm systems and are small and cheap. Also they have pretty good range.
Sounds like somebody just wanted to make a cheap thing into a very high markup item because "robot!"
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You obviously don't have a toddler, and should therefore just STFU. They are fast little monsters who don't obey orders.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Why (Score:5, Insightful)
Spoken as somebody who is probably not a parent.
No, should probably shouldn't let your child run amock, but allowing your kid to walk without being tethered isn't a bad thing, and normally the biggest concerns are keeping him/her away from the escalators or other major stationary hazards. That and making sure the kiddo doesn't run into people, but humans have their own collision avoidance that apparently works better than this robot.
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No, should probably shouldn't let your child run amock, but allowing your kid to walk without being tethered isn't a bad thing, ...
It was in this case. I think the only concern for a parent is to keep their child safe from all hazards. Would you blame the escalator company or mall if you're in an unfamiliar mall and your child fell down the escalator you didn't know was five feet from you? I'm sorry, but there is no excuse for a toddler getting hurt in a mall that takes full blame away from the parent/guardian who's care that child is currently in. By all means, let your child run free and explore - in areas that are safe to do so,
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especially in todays world
Explain this one to me? What is it about today's world that makes it more dangerous to a child? Robot overloads excepted of course.
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Then how was the mom not knocked down?
software crossover (Score:2)
I kid, I kid...
Re:software crossover (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe it was running on the Tesla autopilot algorithm!
Not possible - it ran over the kids foot, but left his head intact.
Actually the robot worked perfectly (Score:4, Interesting)
It detected that he was Asian, so it didn't shoot.
Think of it as evolution in action (Score:5, Funny)
Eventually children will evolve a mechanism to prevent them being run over by wayward security robots, and the strong will survive.
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Why do I get the feeling... (Score:2)
Why do I get the feeling a lawsuit isn't far behind this announcement? The parent's description of the child's horror and emotional turmoil seem ready made for a lawyer to grab up and sue Knightscope, the mall, and every business (with money) in earshot and eyesight of the event.
The 3 laws of robotics ? (Score:3)
Since when does a robot get to make its' own rules. Either way it is a motor operated vehicle in a pedestrian environment and that means that even if the kid was running circles around it the fault lies with the vehicle or the operator. What would be interesting and precedent setting is who would be found at fault ? The programmer, and/or designer, or the people who let it loose in an environment it was pretty clearly not ready for. If you started running floor polisher in a crowded mall and ran over a chil
Re:The 3 laws of robotics ? (Score:5, Interesting)
As a parent (albeit one whose kids are older), little kids are surprisingly fast. One moment of distraction and your child can vanish. After two incidents with my youngest the same day - once when he decided to play hide & seek in a store (the laughing coat rack gave him away) and once when he walked off as we put his older brother's coat on (I followed him to see how far he'd go and finally just picked him up when he got halfway through the store without even looking back) - we decided to do something I thought was stupid pre-kids. We got one of those backpacks with a "leash" on it. (It was a monkey and the parent holds the long tail.) This let my son wander out of hand-holding range but still let us be sure that he was close by us.
And while I'm on the subject of "special powers" little kids have, they can also reach things that you swear are completely out of their reach. My oldest proved this when he was able to get to the "completely out of the kids' reach" scissors and give himself a haircut as we bathed his brother.
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My mother claims I was climbing as a 1 and a half old up the shelfs and cabinets and were often found sitting on top of cabinets below the ceiling ... no idea if that can be true.
But I remember sitting on washing machines and such ... (were I likely somehow made my way up by myself).
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I would expect a 16 month old to do exactly that. I wouldn't expect that his parents would be so irresponsible to allow him to do it though.
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They are very fast on their feet and don't obey orders.
Then why are they are they out in public where they can get hurt? If people can't control their kids, they shouldn't be out in public.
The wave of the future (Score:3)
Re:The wave of the future (Score:4, Informative)
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The horse, in spite of a number of drawbacks did have a number of collision avoidance mechanisms that are only now being re-implemented.
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I'm hoping that advances in genetic engineering will allow us to finally realize Ford's dream of building a better horse.
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They also had several automated attack systems which were sometimes deliberately, sometimes accidentally deployed. What's more is these attack mechanisms were often enhanced through steel plating.
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These make a far more effective and targeted theft deterrent than a loud sound which annoys everyone except the thief.
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You are kidding right? I'd like to know how many people were kicked to death by a parked car. How many people were run over when a parked car freaked out and stampeded.
Horses are dangerous. They are unpredictable and they are flighty. I mean you can seriously seriously mess up an otherwise perfectly fine jumping horse by sticking a rubber ducky in a water jump.
Cars are predictable. If you hit the accelerator they speed up, hit the brakes the slow down, turn the wheel - ahh I'm sure you get it. The fac
Re: The wave of the future (Score:2)
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At some point, parents have to be watching over their kids.
Seems rather irresponsible to let their kid run around unwatched, then blame anyone but yourself.
Not Kid Proof (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems the robot has a lidar sensor on the top and maybe another lidar or simple IR distance sensor midlevel about a 2.3ft above the ground. A little kid could walk beside it without the robot seeing the kid and the wide base could then easily run over something. Seems like it needs some low level bump sensors or maybe not run it in a crowded area.
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Or, how about a plastic wedge shape to push stuff to the side, somewhat like choo-choo-train* cow-catchers. Then you don't need bump sensors, except maybe the tip.
* That's an official technical term, trust me
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Buzz saw attachments are for the ones that upgrade humans. The Exterminate units make di with plungers and eggbeaters.
It "can detect breaking glass" (Score:2)
But apparently it can't detect breaking bones.
I remember this movie! (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
who edits these days? (Score:2, Informative)
The phrase "knocked down and run over" should not be in quotes since it is simply describing what happened.
Quotes are used to either
- distance the author from a statement--meaning that the author does not agree with or holds suspicion over the validity of the statement
- actually quote what a person said (which in some cases overlaps with the reasoning of the first item)
In this article neither is the case.
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The robot most certainly did not "run over" the kid.
It only kept bumping into it when then child was on the ground.
So yes: quotes are fine.
Quotes are used to either
- or for figurative speaking were everyone except you agrees: it was "like" it but not "the same" as it.
As in the phrase we talk about: run over mean - the robot is literally moving over the target and burry it underneath it. Which clearly did not happen in this case.
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If it's a statement, then someone must have said it.
Trust Issues (Score:2)
If you can't trust this thing to detect that it's attempting to run over something like a child, can you trust it to accurately detect and report that a crime is in progress?
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If you can't trust this thing to detect that it's attempting to run over something like a child, can you trust it to accurately detect and report that a crime is in progress?
Honestly it sounds like a slightly mobile burglar alarm that can detect motion (infrared) and glass breaking (microphones), my guess is it doesn't do anything worth anything in the daytime except look cool. But hey, too cool not to show off right?
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I call bullshit! (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? A 16 month old child that never cries? I don't believe that.
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>Any child psychologist
Disregarded for soft science bullshit that can almost never be reproduced.
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Any child psychologist would see the full quote and think, "Hmm, the father started by exaggerating a bit to make his kid look good, realized he wasn't being truthful and corrected himself to 'seldom cries'."
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I know plenty of little children that never cry.
Treat them properly and they don't cry, why should they?
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I know plenty of little children that never cry.
Treat them properly and they don't cry, why should they?
I call BS on this. Kids cry when they don't get what they want. They cry when they are getting tired. They cry when someone else gets what they want. They cry when they have too much food on their plate. They cry when they don't have enough on their plate. They cry when they get hurt. They cry when they are startled. They cry when they have a bad experience. They cry when they hurt themselves.
Kids are going to cry no matter how "perfect" of a parent you are, even if you are spoiling them by bending
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Really? A 16 month old child that never cries? I don't believe that.
Some children just don't cry for attention. Ironically, I was one of them.
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Now he's 3.5, when he cries, it's bloody murder.
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Only the first of a couple of questions that makes this smell like lawsuit bait.
- 16 month old that "never cries"...ma'am, then you may want to have your child tested for autism.
- 16 month left to 'wander' while 300+ lb autonomous machine is trundling by
- I listened to an interview with the mom, she wasn't even sure which foot was hurt. We had 4 kids and my wife could categorize with astonishing certainty and accuracy what parts of them were hurt, and what parts they THOUGHT were hurt but really weren't.
Kill all humans! (Score:2)
Being hit could have happened with a human too (Score:4, Insightful)
Small children can sometimes fall out of an adult's peripheral vision, if they are concentrating on what is further ahead of them rather than on what happens to be on or near ground-level of otherwise familiar territory. This has actually happened to me, and I stopped immediately, as I realized I had not seen whatever it was that I would have otherwise walked right on top of. Fortunately for me, the child was not seriously hurt, but was largely startled by what had happened, and the parents were thankfully not vindictive. Of course, this robot also stayed on its course, which may have led to injuries being more serious than if it had stopped immediately upon contact, as I did.
had to be done (Score:2)
young boy was "knocked down and run over" by one of the Stanford Shopping Center security robots
let that be a lesson to the rest of you, the Stanford Shopping Center is bot territory! ;)
Bot manufacturer's press release here: (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.businesswire.com/ne... [businesswire.com]
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Re:Bot manufacturer's press release here: (Score:5, Interesting)
The mom said, "The robot hit my son's head and he fell down - facing down - on the floor, and the robot did not stop and it kept moving forward." This is in direct contrast to what the robot company said, so one of the accounts is not accurate.
The robot company also said, "The machine veered to the left to avoid the child, but the child ran backwards directly into the front quarter of the machine, at which point the machine stopped and the child fell on the ground." To make a statement about the orientation of the boy requires video (or at least some other electronic detection). Furthermore, the company said, "The machine’s sensors registered no vibration alert and the machine motors did not fault as they would when encountering an obstacle." So, there is some form of an electronic record of what the robot sensed.
Did the parents or any other human claim to have seen the moment of impact? I don't read any direct claim of an eyewitness account.
Compared to humans? (Score:2)
We have no evidence here that the bot is more likely to step on somebody's foot than say Paul Blart.
How is this different. . . (Score:2)
Stanford Shopping Center's security robot stands 5' tall and weighs 300 pounds. . . . 'The robot hit my son's head and he fell down facing down on the floor and the robot did not stop and it kept moving forward,'"
One takes their own life in their hands any time they go out in public nowadays, especially when they go stores. Get that much mass moving and momentum takes hold.
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Investigation reveals warnings were issued. (Score:2)
Please stand aside. You have twenty seconds to comply.
The subject did not comply. After several warnings with increasing level of severity:
Four... three... two... one... I am now authorized to use physical force!
And there you go.
Security guard witness (Score:2)
A security guard told them another child was hurt from the same robot just days before.
The nice point here is that we can rely on this helpful witness, which job's is threatened by the robot: he will not cover the mess.
Broken bone (Score:2)
In other news... (Score:2)
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There robots can't do stirs.
Call joe adler! we are going to sue (Score:2)
We going to sue
Stanford Shopping Center
Knightscope
who ever made the Sensors
and any independent contractors
'BeauHD' is a plagaristist jerk (Score:2)
Come correct, Slashdot.
A fed robot is a dead robot (Score:2)
Now that it's tasted human blood, it will have to be put down. It's the only way to be sure.
So it can detect breaking glass eh? (Score:2)
A real issue (Score:2)
Pretty insensitive posts modded up here.
A child was crushed and iirc killed by a revolving door on roppongi hills in tokyo when it opened some years ago because sensors were not low enough to detect the child. It should be required reading.
What was the kid doing? (Score:2)
Granted, the robot should have been designed to take little kid craziness into account, but I'm betting the direct cause of the incident was said craziness.
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More police are shot by whites than by blacks in the United States.
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That was my point, Chris.
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You can buy our robots in any color you like, so long as it's white.
Eat your heart out, Henry Ford!
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What the hell are you on about? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is everybody's kneejerk reaction to blame the parent?
Re:What the hell are you on about? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is everybody's kneejerk reaction to blame the parent?
Because no one doing the blaming actually has children, or remembers what its like to have small children, or has ever actually had to chase a toddler around. ...though some of them will likely claim to have said experiences, and think that anyone who doesn't keep their child on a dog leash is a horrible parent...
Re:What the hell are you on about? (Score:5, Insightful)
And then there are the "parenting experts" (who have never had kids, mind you) who will proclaim that putting a child on a leash is horrible parenting. So the parent is supposed to always be watching the child - oh, wait. That's helicopter parenting and that's bad. So let your child roam free - but if your child gets hurt it's your fault for not paying close enough attention to them. No matter what parents do, there will always be some self-proclaimed expert who demands that the parents are to blame.
Full disclosure: Before I had kids, I thought those kid-leashes were a horrible idea. After my little guy ran off from us (I followed him to see how far he'd go and finally picked him up halfway across the store), we got him a child-leash. It let him wander independently but within reason. We got the occasional dirty look, but more people commenting on how cute he was with his "monkey backpack" on. And it helped keep him safe. I wouldn't demand that all parents use one but they can be useful for some.
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Anyone
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Because no one doing the blaming actually has children, or remembers what its like to have small children, or has ever actually had to chase a toddler around. ...though some of them will likely claim to have said experiences, and think that anyone who doesn't keep their child on a dog leash is a horrible parent...
I can also remember what it was like to be a child, though, and not do 99% of the shit that children do today. Yes, I would get away from my mother and hide in clothing racks or whatever. No, I wouldn't get in the way of shit and make a nuisance of myself. I didn't yell, I didn't scream, I didn't knock things over, I didn't pull shit off shelves. I don't know if that was better parenting or if I was just different to other children somehow, but frankly, even many children know the difference. Haven't you ev
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Why is everybody's kneejerk reaction to blame the parent? ... in a fucked up country like the US?
Because if a man in black or grey had abducted the child in the same way as the robot hit it: who would you blame for not paying attention
I know tourists who got a bad bad police interview because the kids where sitting 10 yards away on a bench playing with smart phones and reading comics while the parents where sitting in front of a cafe at a table.
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"Vending machines kill people?"
Yes, in fact you're more likely to die from a vending machine accident than you are a shark attack.
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No, idiots tip them on top of themselves trying to nudge the candy bar out.
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Hell, a frickin' Roomba can tell when it bumps into something.
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Or cost cutting.
For a design like that it should really have a ring of ultrasonic, infrared, camera, or similiar sensors affixed pointing around the radius of the robots tread path and set up to stop the robot if anything is projected to go under it.
It needs some of that.
Also, 16 months old is TOO YOUNG to even understand the robot is different than a garbage can. The parents are outright irresponsible in their actions.
If there is going to be a robot that interacts with children, it should be one specialized for that. Leave the security robot to do it's job. Entertain your dumb kid with something designed for kids. Hey! I know! Next take the kid to the free range pit bull farm!
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I'm going to take a guess that you aren't a parent.
Toddlers aren't under 100% positive control at all times. Deal with it. The parents undoubtedly had considered all sorts of possibilities for harm, but could have overlooked the possibility that the mall might run some 300-pound juggernauts around under their own power unsupervised and without proper safety measures.
Have you ever walked around holding a young child's hand? I have fond memories, but one memory is that we, as a team, were not able to
Re:bad parents (Score:4, Insightful)
We don't know the exact situation. In close conditions, the child could have been as little as one staggering jump away from veering into the robot's path. Do you expect the parents to have 50 ms reaction times 24/7 ?
The robot needs to be re-engineered. The design team screwed up pretty badly.
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... Or one jump into traffic, or off into a subway track. If you can't control your kid in a mall, perhaps they shouldn't have been parents. Then to blame the robot for their inattentiveness.
Why can just anyone have kids? No regulation whatsoever, no background checks, no permits or license, just on a whim anyone can have the immense power and awesome responsibility to raise children.
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The robot needs to be re-engineered. The design team screwed up pretty badly.
This is assuming that the story is accurate, and that the kid didn't just twist his ankle while running circles around the robot, and then bump into it when he fell. Absent any video, I'm going to have to take a pass on declaring judgement here.
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