when I came close it stopped, as they do when sensing an object in front of them
The security robots at one of the big skyscrapers down the street from me do not stop for people. My wife got knocked into by one when we were standing in the plaza looking up something on her phone. (They're not little delivery robots. They're about five feet tall.)
Good thing she was confused by what happened, because she's also the type who would have knocked the robot over and asked me to shove it into traffic if she had her wits about her.
Probably. This seems like a public space so almost certainly. However if this was private space sometimes the rules are different. Once in a while I have to go into our factory (not even once a year, but sometimes), and they always make it clear that forklifts have the right away so watch out. (forklifts have poor visibility, so by giving them the right of way they ensure nobody expects them to stop - in practice a forklift driver will stop if they see you, but this way they are not expected to see something that is impossible to see)
I don't think this shields the company from liability. Instead it provides some ammunition to use in the event of a lawsuit.
Things are very different between employees and the general public. I imagine a jury would find that a lady-busting security robot is negligent by default. Whereas, a fork lift driver would be assumed to be doing his job and that situational negligence would need to be proven.
Note that my company does a lot of mandatory training before you are allowed to enter the manufacturing areas. Forklift safety is only a part of it (though a large part as everything else is common sense says you wouldn't do this while forklifts don't follow common sense rules)
I agree if this is a public place a jury would and should find the robots at fault. (unless the robots are running some sort of arrest her routine, or knocking her over because a bad fall is still better than some other danger)
Seriously. What if this thing bowls into a child and seriously injures them? Or a dog that is confused on what the hell is going on? I'm not even against them for mobile surveillance but they need to be safe.
And if these things are really 400 pounds with a low center of gravity as people are linking below.......well then I guess you will just have to enlist the help of one other friend in order to knock it over to prevent it from hurting anyone else.
"rocket shaped" is sort of a generous way to describe it.
My first exposure to security robots was actually a company marketing a repurposed remote-controlled lawnmower platform. It was nearly the size of a Smartcar but low to the ground and designed to cross difficult terrain. Even so, a similarly designed lawnmower tumbled down a hill and killed its operator around the same time frame (I don't think from the same company). That all makes the KnightScope design rather surprising, it seems like these things falling over and injuring people is an inevitable liability. But at least my outside perspective is that the companies using these things don't seem to have much of a head for avoiding liability issues as they're often fielded in ways that end up in negative press coverage at least... not even really due to any kind of fault per se but just the user's lack of consideration of the optics of deploying a large, er, rocket-shaped robot to programmatically harass homeless people.
Some might remember the decade-ago jokes about "do not enter elevator with robot" signs and other artifacts of robots coexisting with humans. It sort of feels like the situation hasn't really advanced that much, we're just getting used to it and actively making use of the present inability of robots to coexist in polite society.
Pure speculation on my part, but having it around 5 feet tall is presumably for the optical cameras to have a better view of the majority of adult human faces. If you're talking a remote control car (at least like the one I had as a kid), any camera is either going to get great photos of people's ankles & shins, up their noses if they're close, or lose detail because they'll have to be too far away to get a decent angle to look at a face.
Run into me with a robot, and it is likely to get knocked over and very heavily damaged, if not pushed out into the street, or off a cliff, or whatever I can find nearby.
And I’m a pretty beefy guy. Run into my wife with a robot, and I will make sure that you really wish you had just run into me instead.
The security robots at one of the big skyscrapers down the street from me do not stop for people. My wife got knocked into by one when we were standing in the plaza looking up something on her phone. (They're not little delivery robots. They're about five feet tall.)
Good thing she was confused by what happened, because she's also the type who would have knocked the robot over and asked me to shove it into traffic if she had her wits about her.