Latinx Files: Beware of the killer robots

In February, my colleague Jean Guerrero warned us in her column about President Biden’s “border surveillance empire,� stating the borderlands had become “a testing ground for dystopian military and surveillance technologies.�

Guerrero also contended that it was only a matter of time before these technologies made their way closer to home, pointing to the past adoption of aerial surveillance drones and license plate readers by police departments across the country.

“Technology companies that were for a long time making a huge profit off of investment in [wars] abroad are now bringing that technology to our militarized border as a way of experimenting how far they can normalize this before making it widespread throughout the United States,� Jacinta González, senior campaign director for grass-roots organization Mijente, told Guerrero.

Guerrero’s column and that quote, in particular, have been on my mind since the news broke Tuesday that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a plan that would allow police to exert lethal force using robots equipped with explosives. The final vote was 8-3.

A similar proposal was considered in neighboring Oakland, but police reversed course in seeking approval because of backlash.

The plan outlines that the killer robots should only be used as a last resort, and only the chief of police, the assistant chief or the deputy chief of special operations can authorize their deployment.

I’m sorry, but have any of these people seen “Robocop�? I don’t need to see into the dystopian future to tell you that this is a recipe for disaster.

The proposal to authorize the use of killer robots has been opposed by organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

“Police technology goes through mission creep-meaning equipment reserved only for specific or extreme circumstances ends up being used in increasingly everyday or casual ways,� EFF policy analyst Matthew Guariglia said in a post criticizing the decision.

Should the SFPD ever use these killer robots, something tells me they won’t be deploying them in wealthy neighborhoods like Pacific Heights.

“Most law enforcement weapons are used against people of color,� Shamann Walton, president of the board and one of the three votes against the plan, said during the meeting. “I’m really just stunned that we’re here talking about this.�

It’s a fair point. It’s not like police have the best track record with communities of color. This year, the San Francisco Chronicle analyzed data provided by the state attorney general and found that racial profiling had worsened in California. In 2019, a Times analysis found that the LAPD searched Black and Latinx drivers during traffic stops at a higher rate than white drivers. The analysis also found that white drivers were more likely to be found with contraband.

Currently, the SFPD doesn’t have any killer robots. According to Wired, the department owns 17 robots, of which 12 are operational. The SFPD also owns several models “that can be equipped with a shotgun, explosives, or pepper spray emitter.�

But it’s only a matter of time.

“Once we see one department taking this step as publicly as San Francisco, it would open the floodgates, I fear,� Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, told the Washington Post.

It’s worth mentioning that last month, Josh Cain of the Los Angeles Daily News reported that the LAPD is in the process of trying to acquire its own Spot, a dog-like all-terrain robot manufactured by Boston Dynamics (pictured in the lead art above) that has gone viral thanks to an appearance on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.� (Side note: is there anything Jimmy Fallon won’t normalize? First Donald Trump, now this?)

To be clear, the LAPD’s robotic dog won’t be deadly. In October, Boston Dynamics and five other robot manufacturers signed an open letter pledging not to weaponize their devices. But as Gizmodo points out, there’s only so much these companies can do after these machines leave their hands.

And as Cahn suggests, the floodgates have already been opened.

What happened to the Mexican national anthem during the World Cup?

If you were following El Tri’s disappointing World Cup run on Telemundo, you probably noticed the glaring issues during the playing of the Mexican national anthem in two of the team’s three matches.

Ahead of the game against Poland on Nov. 22, the audio on the broadcast as the national anthem played sounded garbled and robotic. In Saturday’s match against Argentina, the national anthems of both countries were absent from the broadcast altogether. Such was the reaction after the latter match, that people on social media were calling for the boycott of the broadcaster.

So what happened?

According to a Telemundo spokesperson, it was two separate technical errors. Here’s what they said about the Poland-Mexico game:

“Regarding the previous Mexico match against Poland on Tuesday, we confirmed that the glitch was present on the custom/CSF feed provided by FIFA’s Host Broadcast Services (HBS) to all Media Rights Licensees (MRLs), including Fox. HBS erroneously ran a test on the surround sound channels for the following match that day (France vs. Tunisia). Our team in Miami did not recognize the error in time to lower the surround mix until :39 seconds into the Mexican anthem. Fox had the same noise on their live broadcast; however, they recognized the problem when the teams were walking out of the tunnel and lowered the affected channel right before the Mexican anthem.�

And here is Telemundo’s explanation for the Argentina-Mexico match:

“The production issue that occurred on Saturday during the national anthems of both teams, when neither Argentina or Mexico anthems aired, was due to a formatting issue due to human error.�

The spokesperson did not provide further specifics about the error, though, to the broadcaster’s credit, it did acknowledge the issue on air both times.