Enlarge / Herbert Reul, Interior Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, looks at Boston Dynamics’ robot police dog in January 2022.
Boston Dynamics and several other robotics companies have pledged not to use “general purpose robots” as weapons, according to an open letter released Thursday and first reported by Axios. Although there are significant caveats, the letter mainly focuses on the unauthorized public misuse of their products.
In the letter, titled “General Purpose Robots Should Not Be Armed,” six companies (Agility Robotics, ANYbotics, Boston Dynamics, Clearpath Robotics, Open Robotics, Unitree Robotics) raise concerns about “risks of harm and serious ethical issues” from arming their general purpose products , because they fear it will “damage public confidence in the technology”.
For their part, the robot manufacturers write: “We are committed not to weaponize our general purpose robots with advanced mobility or the software we develop that enables advanced robotics, and we will not assist others in doing so.”
It’s been a high-profile year for improvised robotic weapons. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, news from makeshift bombers off-the-shelf DJI quadcopter drones and munitions have been making the rounds on social media. And in July, a widely shared hobbyist video of a Unitree Dogbot with a gun strapped to its back fueled fears in the press of a “dystopian nightmare.” You can find several videos of people mimicking the stunt in other scenarios on YouTube.
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Enlarge / An unauthorized video of a gun being screwed onto a $3,000 Unitree Robodog quickly went viral on social media in July.
Alexander Atamanov
The open letter appears to indirectly address these recent media events, saying: “…we now feel a renewed urgency at the heightened public concern over the past few months, caused by a small number of people who are backing up their makeshift efforts to commercial… Armament made visible publicly available robots.”
The letter’s specific focus on “general robots with advanced mobility” leaves room for interpretation regarding specialty robots designed for warfare or law enforcement, which the pledge does not cover. Instead, it is primarily about the public use of “widespread” robots and calls for state regulation: “We call on politicians to work with us to promote the safe use of these robots and to prohibit their misuse.”
Boston Dynamics previously supplied robots to police forces for unarmed operations, which sparked a backlash in New York City last year, even though the company’s contract with the New York City Police Department prohibited the Spot robot from being used as a weapon. On this point, the letter makes a notable exception to its promise: “To be clear, we do not confront the existing technologies that nations and their governmental agencies use to defend themselves and uphold their laws.”
You can read the full statement on the Boston Dynamics website.