Facial Recognition-Equipped Robot Dog To Prowl US Sporting Venue

A robot security dog equipped with cameras and facial recognition is about to prowl a sporting venue in the United States.

Mercedes-Benz Stadium, located in Atlanta, Ga., has introduced Benzie the DroneDog, designed by Boston Dynamics and developed by Asylon Robotics. Benzie will autonomously patrol 11 acres and send back real-time video during 30-minute shifts. 

The video feed has 1080p color and night vision capabilities, business news publisher Atlanta Business Chronicle reports.

DroneDog is a quadruped unmanned ground vehicle (Q-UGV) that pairs Boston Dynamics' Spot robot with Asylon's custom applications including PupPack, DogHouse and DroneIQ. The robot developer says that, aside from facial recognition, the robot can perform license plate recognition and sniff for explosives and narcotics.

DroneDog was designed both for government and commercial use. Michael Quiroga, Asylon's chief revenue officer, says that ABM Sports and Entertainment, which operates the stadium, is the first to use the technology in the sports world.

Several years ago the somewhat bizzare TV show Black Mirror featured an episode called "Metalhead" which imagined a future in which robotic guard dogs acts as the enforcement arm of authorities at the time.  

In the show these metal beasts have enough artificial intelligence to problem solve and determine how best to hunt down those humans who have violated certain laws. 

The creepy episode has widely been described as a simplified version of The Terminator and producers say Boston Dynamics robot dogs was it's inspiration for where the future of robodogs may lead.  

Unfortunatly, that future also means multiple possibilities for violence. China has made their own version of "spot" - except they strapped a gun onto it.

Another Chinese defense contractor showed off a drone deploying an armed robodog into a mock warzone:

Which leaves us with yet another robodog that a US company called "Throwflame" has developed into "the first-ever flamethrower-wielding robot dog," according to its website.

"This quadruped is coupled with the ARC Flamethrower to deliver on-demand fire anywhere!" Throwflame said. It can shoot streams of fire up to 30 feet away:

The militarization of robot dogs is terrifying. Even more disturbing is that some of these robots are receiving OpenAI's ChatGPT upgrades that make them even more intelligent. 

Earlier this year the Australian military used artificial intelligence to allow soldiers to control robot dogs soley with their minds.

Called a brain robotic interface, the state-of-the-art artificial intelligence -- through a high-tech biosensor headset -- analyzes brainwave readings and feeds them from a person's visual cortex into the advanced "robodog," Newsflash reported.

"The whole process is not difficult to master. It's very intuitive. It only took a couple of sessions," said 5th Combat Service Support Battalion Sergeant Damian Robinson, who test-drove the HoloLens headset.

Robinson and fellow soldiers did course training with the mind-reading headsets and robodogs, in which they were able to successfully navigate harsh terrain and bad weather on a makeshift battlefield. 

Some experts fear that robodogs may become too smart for their human controllers and act independently as they continue to utilize artificial intelligence to make independent decisions.

It may only be a matter of time before another science fiction show begins to look a lot like reality.